We come to our own and would make friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would persuade us to despise. We can never part with it; the mind loves its old home: as water to our thirst, so is rock, the ground, to our eyes, and hands, and feet. It is firm water: it is cold flame: what health, what affinity!

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

That man is idle who can do something better.

Every roof is agreeable to the eye, until it is lifted; then we find tragedy and moaning women, and hard-eyed husbands.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

Every day, the sun; and, after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden. The scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him?