The intellectual life may be kept clean and healthful, if man will live the life of nature, and not import into his mind difficulties which are none of his.

All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

The greater speed and success that distinguish the planting of the human race in this country, over all other plantations in history, owe themselves mainly to the new subdivisions of the State into small corporations of land and power.

You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.

It is not the irregular hours or irregular diet that makes the romantic life.

An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary.