We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.

How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health!

The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry intotheir secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb mountains,--their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb the summit of Ktaadn.

It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.

Time hides no treasures; we want not its then, but its now.

You may tell by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not.

As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.