Henry David Thoreau

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.

Humility like the darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.

One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs.

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.

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 mind. 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.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases.

Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.

Dying is a troublesome business: there is pain to be suffered, and it wrings one’s heart; but death is a splendid thing –a warfare accomplished, a beginning all over again, a triumph. You can always see that in their faces.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.

Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world.

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Moms. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.