A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

We live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think we thus lose some respect for one another.

If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.

The three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest.

I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.

The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils.

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.