When I first open my eyes upon the morning meadows and look out upon the beautiful world, I thank God I am alive.

When a man says to me, "I have the intensest love of nature," at once I know that he has none.

Nothing great ever happened without enthusiasm.

A man should give us a sense of mass.

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the way of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired.

Nature is good, but intellect is better, as the law-giver is before the law-receiver.

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.