Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

Don't make a novel to establish a principle of political economy. You will spoil both.

In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods we return to reason and faith.

People only see what they are prepared to see. If you look for what is good and what you can be grateful for you will find it everywhere.

We animate what we can see, and we see only what we animate.

No man has a right perception of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be its martyr.