Genius, even, as it is the greatest good, is he greatest harm.

It is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one fact without seeming to belie some other.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being.

A farm is a good thing, when it begins and ends with itself, and does not need a salary, or a shop, to eke it out.

Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.

Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What possesses interest for us is thenatural of each, his constitutional excellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot be satiated with knowing it, and about it; and it is this which the conversation with Nature cherishes and guards.

Some people are born very far from home.