Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of beat.

The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda-these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs.

The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism does not mean sloth: they had as lief hear that their friend is dead, as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed, and can never do anything for humanity.

Speak your latent conviction. . . Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

We honor the rich because they have externally the freedom, power, and grace which we feel to be proper to man, proper to us.

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.