Henry David Thoreau

Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love.

To inherit property is not to be born – it is to be still-born, rather.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.

Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit – not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave our exuviate from their graves.

If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.

You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. It is the tourist’s custom.

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

I was brought up to hate and fear liberty. I came to love it. That is the secret of my whole career.

When you know better, you do better.

A picture is a poem without words.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity: no really self-respecting woman would take advantage of it.

I hate the irreverent rabble and keep them far from me.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.