The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry intotheir secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb mountains,--their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb the summit of Ktaadn.

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

If you look over a list of medicinal recipes in vogue in the last century, how foolish and useless they are seen to be! And yet we use equally absurd ones with faith today.

I know of no redeeming qualities in myself but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I fall back on to this ground.

Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. Nothing will dignify and elevate science while it is sundered so wholly from the moral life of its devotee.