Let nothing come between you and the light.

It is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we beginto keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.

No people ever lived by cursing their fathers, however great a curse their fathers might have been to them.

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man.

I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.