I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud-puddle; he comes out honor-bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much leisure.

All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.

It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you and I.

What a battle a man must fight everywhere to maintain his standing army of thoughts, and march with them in orderly array throughthe always hostile country! How many enemies there are to sane thinking! Every soldier has succumbed to them before he enlists for those other battles.

It is so rare to meet with a man outdoors who cherishes a worthy thought in his mind, which is independent of the labor of his hands. Behind every man's busy-ness there should be a level of undisturbed serenity and industry, as within the reef encircling a coral isle there is always an expanse of still water, where the depositions are going on which will finally raise it above the surface.

Concord is just as idiotic as ever in relation to the spirits and their knockings. Most people here believe in a spiritual world ... in spirits which the very bullfrogs in our meadows would blackball. Their evil genius is seeing how low it can degrade them. The hooting of owls, the croaking of frogs, is celestial wisdom in comparison.

What is religion? That which is never spoken.