"I have traveled a good deal in Concord."

"I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were…"

"Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify."

"Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering for a great while at the eaves of an old church."

"The other day, I was in the woods, and I saw a squirrel. And I thought, 'What a busy little fellow!' And then I thought, 'What am I doing with my life?'"