Henry David Thoreau

Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day – farther and wider – and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.

I constantly ask myself if what I’m doing is for me or somebody else. It’s tripping me out!

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.

Death is the king of this world: ‘Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

Nothing makes a man so selfish as work.

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue; and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him.

He that has more knowledge than judgment, is made for another man’s use more than his own.

The more you know, the less you need.

The doctor learns that if he gets ahead of the superstitions of his patients he is a ruined man; and the result is that he instinctively takes care not to get ahead of them.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.