The order of things should be reversed; the seventh day should be the day of toil...and the other six his Sabbath of the affections and the soul, in which to range this widerspread garden, and drink in the soft influences and sublime revelations of Nature.

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.

Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.

We have reason to be grateful for celestial phenomena, for they chiefly answer to the ideal in man.

It's only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.