I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's wildernesses I first should wander.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

So also there are tides and floods in the affairs of men, which in some are slight and may be kept within bounds, but in others they overmaster everything.

How narrow we selfish conceited creatures are in our sympathies! How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation!

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

There are no accidents in Nature. Every motion of the constantly shifting bodies in the world is timed to the occasion for some definite, fore-ordered end. The flowers blossom in obedience to the same law that marks the course of constellations, and the song of a bird is the echo of a universal symphony. Nature is one, and to me the greatest delight of observation and study is to discover new unities in this all-embracing and eternal harmony.