it was a sly trick of God's to give a man work to do - it kept him from asking questions that God couldn't answer.

Here and there on the branch of an oak a congress of leaves still clung, rigid as flakes of bronze.

A false vision was better than none.

a man can break God's laws and be forgiven. That's what they teach us. But when he breaks Nature's laws, there's no forgiveness - and there's no escape. Sooner or later he pays the penalty, or his children pay it - or his children's children. It doesn't matter much. It must be paid.

There is too much doing - too little being! When we begin to get strenuous, life begins to grow intolerable.

Listen - man is a child of Nature. When he turns against his mother - he's done! He may not find out about it right away, but he will.

once a man had thrust his hands into the soil and knew the grit of it between his teeth, he felt something rise within him that was not of his day or generation, but had persisted through birth and death from a time beyond recall.