The world is plentiful with honey, but only the humble bee can collect it.

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.

The greatest difficulty is that men do not think enough of themselves, do not consider what it is that they are sacrificing when they follow in a herd, or when they cater for their establishment.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

There are men whose language is strong and defying enough, yet their eyes and their actions ask leave of other men to live.

Nature, as we know her, is no saint.... She comes eating and drinking and sinning.

Nature is a language and every new fact one learns is a new word; but it is not a language taken to pieces and dead in the dictionary, but the language put together into a most significant and universal sense. I wish to learn this language - not that I may know a new grammar, but that I may read the great book which is written in that tongue.