Henry David Thoreau

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 sun is but a morning star.

Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

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.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Today is a king in disguise.

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius’s violins without Antonio.

Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers.

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?

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

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.

Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.

I have had to learn that my voice has value. And if I don’t use it, what’s the point of being in the room?

The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness…

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

How many attractions for us have our passing fellows in the streets, both male and female, which our ethics forbid us to express, which yet infuse so much pleasure into life. A lovely child, a handsome youth, a beautiful girl, a heroic man, a maternal woman, a venerable old man, charm us, though strangers, and we cannot say so, or look at them but for a moment.

Riches are for spending.