22 Quotes by Sam Walter Foss

Tis not the greatest singer Who tries the loftiest themes,He is the true joy bringer, Who tells his simplest dreams.He is the greatest poet, Who will renounce all art,And take his heart and show it To every other heart;Who writes no learned riddle, But sings his simplest rune,Takes his heart strings for a fiddle, And plays his easiest tune~ Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)[From Back Country Poems, 1892]

Bring me men to match my mountains: Bring me men to match my plains: Men with empires in their purpose and new eras in their brains.

Seek not for fresher founts afar, just drop you bucket where you are.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.

The woods were made for the hunter of dreams

The woods were made for the hunters of dreams, The brooks for the fisher of song; To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game The streams and the woods belong. There are thoughts that moan from the soul of the pine And thoughts in a flower-bell curled; And the thoughts that are blown with the scent of the fern Are as new and as old as the world.

W'en you see a man in woe, Walk right up and say 'hullo'; Say "hullo" and "how d'ye do. How's the world a-usin' you?

A hundred thousand men were led By one calf near three centuries dead; They followed still his crooked way And lost a hundred years a day; For thus such reverence is lent To well established precedent.

Just drop your bucket where you are.