I walk out into a nature such as the old prophets and poets Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name it America, but it is not America. Neither Americus Vespucius, nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer account of it in Mythology than in any history of America so called that I have seen.

I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents.

They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.

We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking.

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.

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

You may raise enough money to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business.