History can be formed from permanent monuments and records; but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost forever.

It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.

We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him.

To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough.

We found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare; for it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags and treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burden; or how often a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him everything but himself.

More is learned in a public than in a private school, from emulation. There is the collision of mind with mind, or the radiation of many minds pointing to one center.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.