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

Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?

Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum - many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!

That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

The Indian navigator naturally distinguishes by a name those parts of a stream where he has encountered quick water and forks, andagain, the lakes and smooth water where he can rest his weary arms, since those are the most interesting and more arable parts to him.

March to the beat of your own drummer.