Books are for the most part willfully and hastily written, as parts of a system to supply a want real or imagined.

A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.

The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would ... [be] the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.

Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.

Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up.

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety.