He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born.

A person who chooses to die or to risk death demonstrates that there are values, principles, maxims, that are more valuable to him than is life itself. In short, he places his immortal self above his mortal self. Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see - i.e. compare it to, something worse or better, that determines whether you are respectively grateful and happy or ungrateful and bitter.

I lingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house.

I stand in awe of my body.

Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is, in this sense, a hospital.

To see wild life you must go forth at wild season.