Henry David Thoreau

I have lived some thirty-odd years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution – such call I good books.

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice.

Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

Like success, failure is many things to many people. With Positive Mental Attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again.

The less government we have the better.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

If it be an evil to judge rashly or untruly any single man, how much a greater sin it is to condemn a whole people.

Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to think otherwise than in the fashion of their own period.

The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.

Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive.