Henry David Thoreau

Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It’s thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Be not simply good – be good for something.

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice.

You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.

If we are but sure the end is right, we are too apt to gallop over all bounds to compass it; not considering the lawful ends may be very unlawfully attained.

A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it.

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

The physical world, including our bodies, is a response of the observer. We create our bodies as we create the experience of our world.

How can one be well…when one suffers morally?

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

There are those that are void of all mercy, but when it comes the time that they are on their knees, they plead for it. Those that were born with the art of deception, never sincere with their words or actions. But mercy is not theirs to take, only for you to give. Never compromise your standards, your beliefs and become like the ones who you are fighting against, but stay resolute to who you are.

The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

The sun is but a morning star.

Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing. That’s my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

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.

There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry.

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.