You may raise enough money to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business.

I am very little of a traveler.

It would be no reproach to a philosopher, that he knew the future better than the past, or even than the present. It is better worth knowing.

Left to herself, nature is always more or less civilized, and delights in a certain refinement; but where the axe has encroached upon the edge of the forest, the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which she had concealed with green banks of verdure, are exposed to sight.

To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.

What we need to know in any case is very simple.