Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity. If a man should consider the nicety of the passage of a piece of bread down his throat, he would starve.

I thought as I rode in the cold pleasant light of Sunday morning how silent & passive nature offers, every morn, her wealth to man; she is immensely rich, he is welcome to her entire goods, which he speaks no word, only leaves over doors ajar, hall, store room, & cellar. He may do as he will: if he takes her hint & uses her goods, she speaks no word; if he blunders & starves, she says nothing.

The word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.

The cruelest foe is a masked benefactor. The wars which make history so dreary have served the cause of truth and virtue.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions.

We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. The ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder.

Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree.