Henry David Thoreau

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.

Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

However small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.

Your fingers caress my heart strings, shaping a silent sonnet in notes of love. Transcending space and time, bathing the ether in perfect harmony.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

New arts destroy the old.

The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.

The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.

A jest often decides matters of importance more effectual and happily than seriousness.

Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.