Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moral purpose, at which they profess to aim their works.

When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.

Let the black flower blossom as it may!

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.

Men of cold passions have quick eyes.

We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.