A sleeping child gives me the impression of a traveler in a very far country.

The intelligent have a right over the ignorant; namely, the right of instructing them.

Not in his goals but in his transitions, man is great.

Life is not measured by its length, but by its depth.

When the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hang it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune.

A weed is a plant whose virtue is not yet known.

We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had with souls that made our souls wiser, that spoke what we thought, that told us what we knew, that gave us leave to be what we inly are.