He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul one must try to include, as necessary to one's own happiness, the happiness of others.

Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.

All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.

Time alone reveals the just man but you might discern a bad man in a single day.