I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural.

I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.

Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans.

The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must bestripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living laid for a foundation.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.