Henry David Thoreau

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

Water is the only drink for a wise man.

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.

If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

The thief. Once committed beyond a certain point he should not worry himself too much about not being a thief any more. Thieving is God’s message to him. Let him try and be a good thief.

The teacher reminded us that Romes liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little; first with a little corn and oil for the exceedingly poor and wretched, later with corn and oil for voters who were not quite so poor, later still with corn and oil for pretty much every man that had a vote to sellexactly our own history over again.

God is better served in resisting a Temptation to Evil, than in many formal Prayers.

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

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.

Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.

Do or do not. There is no try.