I find it more credible, since it is anterior information, that one man should know heaven, as the Chinese say, than that so many men should know the world.

It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him [H.D. Thoreau]. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his own.

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

Life is unnecessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance,--what ample borrowers of eternity they are!

There is this to be said in favor of drinking, that it takes the drunkard first out of society, then out of the world.

A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no luster as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors.

Proportion is almost impossible to human beings. There is no one who does not exaggerate.