Virtue is a habit of the mind, consistent with nature and moderation and reason.

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

Can the mind see the truth of its own incapacity to know the unknown? Surely if I see very clearly that my mind cannot know the unknown, there is absolute quietness.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the law of nature and of nations.

My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.

Nothing on this earth is standing still. It’s either growing or it’s dying. No matter if it’s a tree or a human being.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

Two things control men’s nature, instinct and experience.

Electrical science has disclosed to us the more intimate relation existing between widely different forces and phenomena and has thus led us to a more complete comprehension of Nature and its many manifestations to our senses.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

A feeble body weakens the mind.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

You should hurry up and acquire the cigar habit. It’s one of the major happinesses. And so much more lasting than love, so much less costly in emotional wear and tear.

Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.

Man consists of two parts, his mind and his body, only the body has more fun.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

Horses make a landscape look beautiful.

I’m afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn’t fit that will become unnecessary.

Studies perfect nature and are perfected still by experience.

In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

I am a generous man, by nature, and far more trusting than I should be. Indeed. The real world is risky territory for people with generosity of spirit. Beware.

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords.

There are trees of a thousand sorts, and all have their several fruits; and I feel the most unhappy man in the world not to know them, for I am well assured that they are all valuable. I bring home specimens of them, and also of the land.

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

I love the sea.

When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.

In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

Sometimes, it’s just easier to say yes to that extra snack or dessert, because frankly, it is exhausting to keep saying no. It’s exhausting to plead with our kids to eat just one more bite of vegetables.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.

You shall, I question not, find a way to the top if you diligently seek for it; for nature hath placed nothing so high that it is out of the reach of industry and valor.

In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.

The movement of search can only be from the known to the known, and all that the mind can do is to be aware that this movement will never uncover the unknown. Any movement on the part of the known is still within the field of the known.

The word ‚belief‘ is a difficult thing for me. I don’t believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it – I don’t need to believe it.