The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms. - Henry David Thoreau

Water is so much more fine and sensitive an element than earth. A single boatman passing up or down the whole of a wide river, and disturbs its every reflection. The air is an element which our voices shake still further than our oars the water.

There is more religion in men's science than there is science in their religion.

I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.