Ride your emotions as the shallop rides the waves; don't get upset among them. There are people who enjoy getting swamped emotionally, just as, incredibly, there are people who enjoy getting drunk.

I am not sure that God always knows who are his great men; he is so very careless of what happens to them while they live.

The real wonder is not that one man should be a genius, but that every man should not be.

The manner of the country makes the usage of life there, and the land will not be lived in except in its own fashion.

To underestimate one's thirst, to pass a given landmark to the right or left, to find a dry spring where one looked for running water - there is no help for any of these things.

Genius may be for an hour or a thousand years; its indispensable quality is continuity with the life-push.

The palpable sense of mystery in the desert air breeds fables, chiefly of lost treasure. ... It is a question whether it is not better to be bitten by the little horned snake of the desert that goes sidewise and strikes without coiling, than by the tradition of a lost mine.