Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.

My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness!

Can we not do without the society of our gossip a little while, - have our own thoughts to cheer us?

We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads,--and then we can hardly see anything else.

I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.