Henry David Thoreau

Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

What your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right.

There is no daily chore so trivial that it cannot be made important by skipping it two days running.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

This gives force to the strong — that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.

I shall strike the stars with my unlifted head.

We cannot see things that stare us in the face until the hour comes that the mind is ripened.

You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Where Example keeps pace with Authority, Power hardly fails to be obey’d.

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper.