Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so great as that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds the churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches a truer doctrine.

In the planting of the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no more than follow Nature, though they may not know it.

I wished only to be set down in Canada, and take one honest walk there as I might in Concord woods of an afternoon.

To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating.

Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface,not concluded in the appendix. Even Virgil's poetry serves a very different use to me today from what it did to his contemporaries. It has often an acquired and accidental value merely, proving that man is still man in the world.

In the summer we lay up a stock of experiences for the winter, as the squirrel of nuts?something for conversation in winter evenings.

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.