Where shall we look for standard English, but to the words of a standard man?

The biggest happiness is when at the end of the year you feel better than at the beginning

Do you know how the naturalist learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, of beasts, of reptiles, of fishes, of the rivers and the sea? When he goes into the woods the birds fly before him and he finds none; when he goes to the river bank, the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. His secret is patience; he sits down, and sits still; he is a statue; he is a log.

It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination

If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him . . he will be surrounded by grandeur.

Under the one word "house" are included the schoolhouse, the almshouse, the jail, the tavern, the dwellinghouse; and the meanest shed or cave in which men live contains elements of all these. But nowhere on the earth stands the entire and perfect house.

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. The former are so much the freer.