There are natures that go to the streams of life in great cities as the hart goes to the water brooks.

A perfect life is like that of a ship of war which has its own place in the fleet and can share in its strength and discipline, but can also go forth alone in the solitude of the infinite sea. We ought to belong to society, to have our place in it, and yet be capable of a complete individual existence outside of it.

Never be afraid of What is good; the good is always the road to what is true.

I wonder how it is that so cheerful-looking a tree as the willow should ever have become associated with ideas of sadness.

Society is, and must be, based upon appearances, and not upon the deepest appearances, and not realities.

The art of reading is to skip judiciously. Whole libraries may be skipped in these days, when we have the results of them in our modern culture without going over the ground again.

Unless a man works he cannot find out what he is able to do.