Henry David Thoreau

The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.

The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Shallow people believe in luck and in circumstances; Strong people believe in cause and effect.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

When I hear the hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules of theirs. I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless as a lamb’s bleat.

This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me. It works beautifully as long as I think the same things as he does.

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.

Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

The angels are so enamoured of the language that is spoken in heaven, that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not.

An index is a great leveller.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.