“The birth of a baby and the blooming of a flower are natural events, but the laboratory methods forever fail to give us the key to the secret of either.”

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.

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.

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

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.

We are really here to be happy and to make others happy.

She blooms wild and burns bright.

But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, it’s bloom is shed; Or, like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white, then melts forever.

I think you’re made of flowers, how you bloom when there’s light in your skin.

Remember that frost comes latest to those that bloom the highest.

Can hope bloom in the shade? Can time give back what it takes away? I once saw the answers to life in your eyes; now I can remember the words to goodbye.

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming… suddenly you find – at the age of 50, say – that a whole new life has opened before you.

Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly?

I shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow.