Quote collection
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"Simplicity is the law of Nature for man as well as for flowers. When the tapestry (corolla) of the nuptial bed (calyx) is excessive, luxuriant, it is unproductive. The fertile flowers are single, not double."
"I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie on the earth."
"An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed."
"I had a classmate who fitted for college by the lamps of a lighthouse, which was more light, we think, than the University afforded."
"Where the most beautiful wild flowers grow, there mans spirit is fed and poets grow."
"I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will."
"Things don't change. We change."
"There is more religion in men's science, than there is science in their religion."
"However mean your life is, meet it and live it."
"We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander."
"It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil."
"That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."
"I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing."
"Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights."
"I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while."
"We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice."
"What the essential difference between man and woman is, that they should be thus attracted to one another, no one has satisfactorily answered. Perhaps we must acknowledge the justness of the distinction which assigns to man the sphere of wisdom, and to woman that of love, though neither belongs exclusively to either. Man is continually saying to woman, Why will you not be more wise? Woman is continually saying to man, Why will you not be more loving? It is not in their wills to be wise or to be loving; but, unless each is both wise and loving, there can be neither wisdom nor love."
"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."
"What is called genius is the abundance of life and health."
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose."