Henry David Thoreau

If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good;be good for something.All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. Let nothing come between you and the light. Respect men and brothers only. When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

It happened once that a youth and a maiden beheld each other in a public assembly for the first time

It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger.

I was brought up to hate and fear liberty. I came to love it. That is the secret of my whole career.

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

The human race afraid of nothing, rushes on through every crime.

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Most people do not pray; they only beg.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.