If only the bird with the loveliest song sang, the forest would be a lonely place.

The fact is I am growing old too fast, alas! I feel it, and yet work I will, and may God grant me life to see the last plate of my mammoth work finished.

The best recommendation I can have is my own talents, and the fruits of my own labors, and what others will not do for me, I will try and do for myself.

I discover that my friends think only of my apparel, and those upon whom I have conferred acts of kindness prefer to remind me of my errors.

To have been torn from the study would have been as death; my time was entirely occupied with art.

The Fur Company may be called the exterminating medium of these wild and almost uninhabitable regions, which cupidity or the love of money alone would induce man to venture into. Where can I now go and find nature undisturbed?

During all these years there existed within me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks.