“The fine, hair-like rootlets at the bottom and the microscopical cells of the leaves at the top.”

The love of nature is a different thing from the love of science, though the two may go together.

Father knew me not. All my aspirations in life were a sealed book to him, as much as his peculiar religious experiences were to me.

My motto is never to try to imitate anybody: I have always looked inward and followed the inward voice.

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.

I have thought that a good test of civilization, perhaps one of the best, is country life.

To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday.

He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.

Man takes root at his feet, and at best, he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage till he has established communication with the soil by the loving and magnetic touch of his soles to it.

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 me, nothing else about a tree is so remarkable as the extreme delicacy of the mechanism by which it grows and lives.

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.

Writing is reporting what we saw after the vision has left us. It is catching the fish which the tide has left far up on our shores in the low and depressed places.

It seems at times as if they possessed some extra sense – the home sense – which operates unerringly.

The trunk of a tree is like a community where only one generation at a time is engaged in active business, the great mass of the population being retired and adding solidity and permanence to the social organism.