Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon.

The intellect of most men is barren. They neither fertilize or are fertilized. It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination...without nature-awakened imagination most persons do not really live in the world, they merely pass through it as they live dull lives of quiet desperation.

What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

Simplify your life. Don't waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant. Don't burden yourself with possessions. Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have. Don't destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present. Simplify!

An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not.