“When the woodpecker is searching for food, or laying siege to some hidden grub, the sound of his hammer is dead or muffled and is heard but a few yards. It is only upon dry, seasoned timber, freed of its bark, that he beats his reveille to spring and wooes his mate.”

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

“The dog is often quick to resent a kick, be it from man or beast, but I have never known him to show anger at the door that slammed to and hit him. Probably, if the door held him by his tail or his limb, it would quickly receive the imprint of his teeth.”

“Without the name, any flower is still more or less a stranger to you. The name betrays its family, its relationship to other flowers, and gives the mind something tangible to grasp. It is very difficult for persons who have had no special training to learn the names of the flowers from the botany.”

“Wisdom cannot come by railroad or automobile or aeroplane, or be hurried up by telegraph or telephone.”

“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”

“The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.”

“If you think you can do it, you can.”

“A somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did.”

“The art of the bird is to conceal its nest both as to position and as to material, but now and then it is betrayed into weaving into its structure showy and bizarre bits of this or that, which give its secret away and which seem to violate all the traditions of its kind.”

“To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another.”