The beginnings of moral enterprises in this world are never to be measured by any apparent growth. ... At length comes the sudden ripeness and the full success, and he who is called in at the final moment deems this success his own. He is but the reaper and not the labourer. Other men sowed and tilled and he but enters into their labours.

Undoubtedly we render our consciences callous by evil indulgences; but we cannot entirely subdue that still, small voice.

Every green thing loves to die in bright colors. The vegetable cohorts march glowing out of the year in flaming dresses, as if to leave this earth were a triumph and not a sadness. It is never nature that is sad, but only we, that dare not look back on the past, and that have not its prophecy of the future in our bosoms.

Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it.

Liberty is the soul's right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.

Your greatest pleasure is that which rebounds from hearts that you have made glad.

Refinement is the lifting of one's self upwards from the merely sensual; the effort of the soul to etherealize the common wants and uses of life.