Henry David Thoreau

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

That devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly, introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the country’s champion, the Moore of Moore Hall, to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?

There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.

Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

It were better to be of no church, than to be bitter for any.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems.

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.

The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

Ah! Sir, a boy’s being flogged is not so severe as a man’s having the hiss of the world against him.

One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

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

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, Sir, I am your most humble servant. You are not his most humble servant. You may say, These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times. You don’t mind the times … You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don’t think foolishly.