Henry David Thoreau

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.

What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?

I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.

Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It’s thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.

Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.

Never do wrong when people are looking.

Better is the enemy of good.

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I’m sure that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for.

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Oftentimes, it’s the way we react to change that is the thing that determines the overall experience.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

A sudden bold and unexpected question does many times surprise a man and lay him open.

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.

How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood-lot. The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.