A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

Biography, too, is liable to the same objection; it should be autobiography. Let us not, as the Germans advise, endeavor to go abroad and vex our bowels that we may be somebody else to explain him. If I am not I, who will be?

How rarely I meet with a man who can be free, even in thought! We all live according to rule. Some men are bedridden; all world-ridden.

I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.

I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their greatest deed is the impression they make on me.

Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.

It is not enough that we are truthful; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful about.