Men should not labor foolishly like brutes, but the brain and the body should always, or as much as possible, work and rest together, and then the work will be of such a kind that when the body is hungry the brain will be hungry also, and the same food will suffice for both; otherwise the food which repairs the waste energy of the overwrought body will oppress the sedentary brain, and the degenerate scholar will come to esteem all food vulgar, and all getting a living drudgery.

I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well.

I am reminded by my journey how exceedingly new this country still is. You have only to travel for a few days into the interior and back parts even of many of the old States, to come to that very America which the Northmen, and Cabot, and Gosnold, and Smith, and Raleigh visited.

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.

Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her.