Henry David Thoreau

The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.

The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.

A verse from the Veda says, ‘What you see, you become.’ In other words, just the experience of perceiving the world makes you what you are. This is a quite literal statement.

The remedy is worse than the disease.

We learned about dignity and decency – that how hard you work matters more than how much you make… that helping others means more than just getting ahead yourself.

Truth is a naked and open daylight.

My emancipation don’t fit your equation.

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

In the scenery of spring, nothing is better, nothing worse; the flowering branches are; some long, some short.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch?

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.