He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what tho….

For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it..

It is remarkable, but on the whole, perhaps, not to be lamented, that the world is so unkind to a new book. Any distinguished traveler who comes to o….

Water is a pioneer which the settler follows, taking advantage of its improvements..

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary..

A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end..

The press is, almost without exception, corrupt..

We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wil….

Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage..

Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe Elizabethan men….

In civilization, as in a southern latitude, man degenerates at length, and yields to the incursion of more northern tribes..

We are ashamed of our fear; for we know that a righteous man would not suspect danger nor incur any. Wherever a man feels fear, there is an avenger..

I could lecture on dry oak leaves; I could, but who would hear me? If I were to try it on any large audience, I fear it would be no gain to them, and….

If you would feel the full force of a tempest, take up your residence on the top of Mount Washington, or at the Highland Light, inTruro..

As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtlest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky..

When I hear the hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc... I see that they forget that the first r….

In the unbending of the arm to do the deed there is experience worth all the maxims in the world..

I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak..

If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living….

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it..

If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few marriages such as we witnes….