Henry David Thoreau

Be not simply good – be good for something.

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.

There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.

If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

We hate the kindness which we understand.

When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,’ you just scream.

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.

When a man is just and firm in his purpose, the citizens burning to approve a wrong or the frowning looks of a tyrant. Do not shake his fixed mind, nor the Southwind. Wild lord of the uneasy Adriatic, nor the thunder in the mighty hand of Jove: Should the heavens crack and tumble down, as the ruins crushed him he would not fear.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

The secret in education lies in respecting the student.

There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.

If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools.