Society and Solitude

I fell in with a humorist, on my travels, who had in his chamber a cast of the Rondanini Medusa, and who assured me that the name which…

A certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is found,—a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape,—a cannibal, and…

All departments of life at the present day,—Trade, Politics, Letters, Science, or Religion,—seem to feel, and to labor to express, the…

It is the doctrine of the popular music-masters, that whoever can speak can sing. So, probably, every man is eloquent once in his life. Our…

The perfection of the providence for childhood is easily acknowledged. The care which covers the seed of the tree under tough husks and…

The glory of the farmer is that, in the division of labors, it is his part to create. All trade rests at last on his primitive activity. He…

Our nineteenth century is the age of tools. They grow out of our structure. “Man is the metre of all things,” said Aristotle; “the hand is…

It is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found; and the best are but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly there…

We are delicate machines, and require nice treatment to get from us the maximum of power and pleasure. We need tonics, but must have those…

I observe that there are three qualities which conspicuously attract the wonder and reverence of mankind:—

Our American people cannot be taxed with slowness in performance or in praising their performance. The earth is shaken by our engineries.…

On the anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, in 1861, the venerable President Quincy, senior member of the Society, as…