What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!

How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make – leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone – we all dwell in a house of one room – the world with the firmament for its roof – and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.

No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening – still all is Beauty!

God never made an ugly landscape. All that sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fool”

Look up and down and round about you.

Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance.

Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts . . .”

When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well".

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”

“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”

“Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.”

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”

“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”

“Life is short, break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile.”

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

“Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.”

“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”

“What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce.”

“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”

“The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.”

“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”

“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

“Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”

“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

“It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.”

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”