It is after we get home that we really go over the mountain, if ever.

Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty, as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds.

In the wildest nature, there is not only the material of the most cultivated life, and a sort of anticipation of the last result,but a greater refinement already than is ever attained by man.... Nature is prepared to welcome into her scenery the finest work of human art, for she is herself an art so cunning that the artist never appears in his work.

I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

How many a poor immortal soul I have met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it [an oversized home].

He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts.

The newest is but the oldest made visible to our senses.