Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is Doomsday.

More from "Works and Days," Society and Solitude (1870)

• A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
• A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
• Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.
• He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
• If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
• Imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.