Observation is so wide awake, and facts are being so rapidly added to the sum of human experience, that it appears as if the theorizer would always be in arrears, and were doomed forever to arrive at imperfect conclusion; but the power to perceive a law is equally rare in all ages of the world, and depends but little on the number of facts observed.

As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is most correct.

How rarely I meet with a man who can be free, even in thought! We all live according to rule. Some men are bedridden; all world-ridden.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Give me the old familiar world, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten.

To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, andflatter and study effect only more finely than the rest.

As I love nature, as I love singing birds...I love thee, my friend.