This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

A truly good book is something as wildly natural and primitive, mysterious and marvelous, ambrosial and fertile as a fungus or a lichen.

I learned what it is to live in the open air, and I learned that our lives are domestic in more sense than we think.

They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

As long as I have the friendship of the sesasons life will never be a burden to me.