“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.

Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.

We are constantly invited to be what we are.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

I have a room all to myself; it is nature.

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don’t get enough for this year, I shall cry all the next.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

It is never too late to give up your prejudices.

I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.