Nature and Elements

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature's way.

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be?--it is the same the angels breathe.

The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise.

The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise.

There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather... In the spring I have counted one hundred and twenty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.

There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather... In the spring I have counted one hundred and twenty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.

For all the talk you hear about knowledge being such a wonderful thing, instinct is worth forty of it for real unerringness.

Herschel removed the speckled tent-roof from the world and exposed the immeasurable deeps of space, dim-flecked with fleets of colossal suns sailing their billion-leagued remoteness.

Rise early. It is the early bird that catches the worm. Don't be fooled by this absurd law; I once knew a man who tried it. He got up at sunrise and a horse bit him.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass.

A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!

It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat .

Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity - these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing. They are not ashamed.

Cherimoya, the most delicious fruit known to men.

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.