Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man,--that of being judged by their peers.

I have never looked at foreign countries or gone there but with the purpose of getting to know the general human qualities that are spread all over the earth in very different forms, and then to find these qualities again in my own country and to recognize and to further them.

Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.

Life's objective is life itself.

The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.

You acquire a language most readily in the country where it is spoken; you study mineralogy best among miners; and so with everything else.

If we are out of synch with ourselves, everything is out of synch for us.