Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

It’s not whether you get knocked down, its whether you get back up.

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

See, I think you live on earth a certain number of times until you finish what it is that you were meant to do here. And then you go on. I don’t think I’ll be back here. I think I’m done.

All say, How hard it is that we have to die – a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.

The soul is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, by virtue of having no willing association with the body in life but avoiding it… Practicing philosophy in the right way is a training to die easily.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.