The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can old man, — you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind,– I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that.

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free though secret in the woods, and still sustain themselves in the neighborhood of towns, suspected by hunters only. How retired the otter manages to live here! He grows to be four feet long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without any human being getting a glimpse of him.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.

The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.