Henry David Thoreau

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

The only wealth is life.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other’s hopes. They are kind to each other’s dreams.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.

The listlessness of it all, the profit off depression, the extinction of an entire species, the chlorinated connections- poisoned just to appear clean.

When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

Such as take lodgings in a head that’s to be let unfurnished.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

There is no one who does not exaggerate!

If you have nothing to say, say nothing.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.