My drawings at first were made altogether in watercolors, but they wanted softness and a great deal of finish.

The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did the originals appear.

[Drawing should be] a journey of pleasure. Each step must present to the travellers' view objects that are eminently interesting, varied in their appearances, and attracting to such a degree as to excite in each individual thus happily employed the desire of knowing all respecting all he sees.

There is the morass, wherein you plunge up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, whereby one treads down the forests of Labrador; and the unexpected bunting or sylvia which perchance, and indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or hear singing from the ground creeping plant.

A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children.

To repay evils with kindness is the religion I was taught to practise, and this will forever be my rule.

Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.