I am convinced that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.

If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist.

Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.

Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.

Truly the stars were given for a consolation to man.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

After reading Howitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings one evening,... I asked myself why I might not be washing some golddaily, though it were only the finest particles,--why I might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine.... At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence.