Henry David Thoreau

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake . . . by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life … would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.

Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself.

Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled egg…

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. ‘Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.

Avoid inquisitive persons, for they are sure to be gossips, their ears are open to hear, but they will not keep what is entrusted to them.

All that appears is devoid of independent existence, just like a magical apparition or a dream.

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?

The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can be honored in succeeding.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.