I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. ... All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with? ... Suicide is more respectable.

The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture...food for our mind, as well as our body.

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

To believe in luck ... is skepticism.

Many might go to Heaven with half the labor they go to hell.

Live well, learn plenty, laugh often, love much.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.