Date: 1854

"The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels."

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Date: 1854

"While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?"

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Date: 1854

"And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain."

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Date: 1855

"This is the tasteless water of souls .... this the true sustenance."

— Whitman, Walt (1819-1892)

Date: 1858

"His faculties were so well balanced and combined, that his constitution, free from excess, was tempered evenly with all the elements of activity, and his mind resembled a well-ordered commonwealth."

— Bancroft, George (1800-1891)

Date: 1862

"Successful minds work like a gimlet -- to a single point."

— Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904)

Date: 1865

"Lilac and star and bird, twined with the chant of my soul, / With the holders holding my hand, nearing the call of the bird, / There in the fragrant pines, and the cedars dusk and dim."

— Whitman, Walt (1819-1892)

Date: 1869

"His mind resembled chiefly the rugged and outstanding mountain, and yet it had characteristics which reminded you likewise of the gentle stream, flowing sweetly through the valley below."

— Sprague, William Buell (1795-1876)

Date: October 10, 1869

"Recitations alone readily degenerate into dusty repetitions, and lectures alone are too often a useless expenditure of force. The lecturer pumps laboriously into sieves. The water may be wholesome, but it runs through."

— Eliot, Charles William (1834-1926)

Date: 1873

"There thou sittest in thy wonted corner / Lone and awful in thy darkened mind."

— Lowell, James Russell (1819-1891)