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" The life of a swarm of bees is like an active and hazardous campaign of an army: the ranks are being continually depleted and continually recruited. "

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" Wisdom cannot come by railroad or automobile or aeroplane, or be hurried up by telegraph or telephone. "

" The pond-lily is a star and easily takes the first place among lilies; and the expeditions to her haunts, and the gathering her where she rocks upon the dark, secluded waters of some pool or lakelet, are the crown and summit of the floral expeditions of summer. "

" You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. "

" Birds and animals probably think without knowing that they think; that is, they have not self-consciousness. Only man seems to be endowed with this faculty; he alone develops disinterested intelligence, intelligence that is not primarily concerned with his own safety and well-being but that looks abroad upon things. "

" To many forms of life of our northern lands, winter means a long sleep; to others, it means what it means to many fortunate human beings - travels in warm climes. To still others, who again have their human prototypes, it means a struggle, more or less fierce, to keep soul and body together; while to many insect forms, it means death. "

" When Darwin published his conclusion that man was descended from an apelike ancestor who was again descended from a still lower type, most people were shocked by the thought; it was intensely repugnant to their feelings. "

" The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show anger at the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth. "

" It seems to me that evolution adds greatly to the wonder of life because it takes it out of the realm of the arbitrary, the exceptional, and links it to the sequence of natural causation. "

" For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service. "

" Leap, and the net will appear. "

" Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality. "

" As with other phases of nature, I have probably loved the rocks more than I have studied them. "

" Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the text-books in the schools; but study it yourself in the fields and woods, and you will find it a source of perennial delight. "

" Travel and society polish one, but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is a good thing on a man. "

" As life nears its end with me, I find myself meditating more and more upon the mystery of its nature and origin, yet without the least hope that I can find out the ways of the Eternal in this or in any other world. "

" I always feel that I have missed some good fortune if I am away from home when my bees swarm. What a delightful summer sound it is! How they come pouring out of the hive, twenty or thirty thousand bees, each striving to get out first! "

" No one else looks out upon the world so kindly and charitably as the pedestrian; no one else gives and takes so much from the country he passes through. "

" My life has been a fortunate one; I was born under a lucky star. It seems as if both wind and tide had favoured me. I have suffered no great losses, or defeats, or illness, or accidents, and have undergone no great struggles or privations; I have had no grouch. I have not wanted the earth. "

" Fear, love, and hunger were the agents that developed the wits of the lower animals, as they were, of course, the prime factors in developing the intelligence of man. "

" There is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad. "

" I seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral. "

" I am sure I was an evolutionist in the abstract, or by the quality and complexion of my mind, before I read Darwin, but to become an evolutionist in the concrete, and accept the doctrine of the animal origin of man, has not for me been an easy matter. "

" The common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is to be disposed of, they starve her to death, and the queen herself will sting nothing but royalty, nothing but a rival queen. "

" I went to the Lake District to see what kind of a country it could be that would produce a Wordsworth. "

" To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. "

" How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate. "

" Emerson is the spokesman and prophet of youth and of a formative, idealistic age. His is a voice from the heights which are ever bathed in the sunshine of the spirit. I find that something one gets from Emerson in early life does not leave him when he grows old. "

" My books are, in a way, a record of my life - that part of it that came to flower and fruit in my mind. "

" Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion. "

" The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. "