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?

For the most part, the best man's spirit makes a fearful sprite to haunt his grave.

It is not enough that our life is an easy one. We must live on the stretch, retiring to our rest like soldiers on the eve of a battle, looking forward to the strenuous sortie of the morrow.

I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.

A gun will give you the body, not the bird

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.

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