At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.
Those undeserved joys which come uncalled and make us more pleased than grateful are they that sing.
I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their greatest deed is the impression they make on me.
Where shall we look for standard English, but to the words of a standard man?
One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.
Man’s moral nature is a riddle which only eternity can solve.
It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.
Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.
We soon get through with Nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy. The merest child which has rambled into a copsewood dreams of a wildness so wild and strange and inexhaustible as Nature can never show him.
The works of great poets have never been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them.
Color, which is the poet’s wealth, is so expensive that most take to mere outline sketches and become men of science.
The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of any mountain.
All the past is here, present to be tried; let it approve itself if it can.
I know of no redeeming qualities in myself but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I fall back on to this ground.
If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even,- for that is the seat of sympathy,-he forthwith sets about reforming the world.
Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning.
I love a life whose plot is simple.
It is tranquil people who accomplish much.
We are more anxious to speak than to be heard.
He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts.