Henry David Thoreau

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.

We’re so infatuated with studying labels that we forget to read between the lines of one another.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.

Sorrow is the rust of the soul and activity will cleanse and brighten it.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.