If I were to be a frog hawk for a month I should soon know some things about the frogs. - Henry David Thoreau

Man is the artificer of his own happiness. Let him beware how he complains of the disposition of circumstances, for it is his own disposition he blames. If this is sour, or that rough, or the other steep, let him think if it be not his work. If his look curdles all hearts, let him not complain of a sour reception; if he hobbles in his gait, let him not grumble at the roughness of the way; if he is weak in the knees, let him not call the hill steep.

My life is like a stroll upon the beach, As near the ocean's edge as I can go.

It is with the graves of trees as with those of men, —at first an upright stump (for a monument), in course of time a mere mound, and finally, when the corpse has decayed and shrunk, a depression in the soil.