For beautiful variety no crop can be compared with this. Here is not merely the plain yellow of the grains, but nearly all the col...ors that we know, the brightest blue not excepted: the early blushing maple, the poison sumach blazing its sins as scarlet, the mulberry ash, the rich chrome yellow of the poplars, the brilliant red huckleberry, with which the hills' backs are painted, like those of sheep. The frost touches them, and, with the slightest breath of returning day or jarring of earth's axle, see in what showers they come floating down! The ground is all parti-colored with them. But they still live in the soil, whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. They stoop to rise, to mount higher in coming years, by subtle chemistry, climbing by the sap in the trees; and the sapling's first fruits thus shed, transmuted at last, may adorn its crown, when, in after years, it has become the monarch of the forest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of high...ways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility. I have looked after the wild stock of the town,... and I have had an eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm.... I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle-tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons. In short, I went on thus for a long time (I may say it without boasting), faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Thru all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing.... It sounds and echoes in my soul; How can I keep from singing?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We can teach prevention. For little kids, the best protection is that they should not be alone in public places. All children shou...ld be conscious of strangers, and be discriminating and wary of them. This won't make them grow up suspicious as long as they have adults around whom they know and can trust: relatives, friends of their parents, parents of friends.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you ...can fool all of the people all of the time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All that a pacifist can undertake--but it is a very great deal--is to refuse to kill, injure or otherwise cause suffering to anoth...er human creature, and untiringly to order his life by the rule of love though others may be captured by hate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Slavery can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation; and that can be done only by showing ...them a higher one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The sure characteristic of a sound and strong mind is, to find, in everything, those certain bounds, quos ultra citrave nequit con...sistere rectum. These boundaries are marked out by a very fine line, which only good sense and attention can discover; it is much too fine for vulgar eyes. In manners, this line is good breeding; beyond it, is troublesome ceremony; short of it, is unbecoming negligence and inattention. In morals, it divides ostentatious Puritanism from criminal relaxation; in religion, superstition from impiety; and, in short, every virtue from its kindred vice or weakness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »