They required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still.
They make their pride, he said, in making their dinner cost much; I make my pride in making my dinner cost little. When asked at table what dish he preferred, he answered, The nearest.
There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.
The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours …but it is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.
The purity men love is like the mists which envelop the earth, and not likethe azure ether beyond.
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us.
The gross feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them.
The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature.
The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.
So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii...
Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth.
It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd so diligently follow.
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves...The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men and so with the...
It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves. How beautifully they go to their graves! how gently lay themselves down and turn to mould!--painted of a thousand hues,...
It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time.
It costs me nothing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in...and if he [the sun] is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still...
Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them.
If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life.
If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.
If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.