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.

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

That government is best which governs least.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

I was born upon thy bank, river, my blood flows in thy stream, and thou meanderest forever. At the bottom of my dream.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.

Of course, money will do after its kind, and will steadily work to unspiritualize and unchurch the people to whom it was bequeathed.

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.

The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

The eye is the jewel of the body.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition.

Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

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

If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

Your dreams may have shattered, but that doesn’t mean they are over. They can still be turned into a mosaic of success.

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.