Henry David Thoreau

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled.

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

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.

Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

The sun is but a morning star.

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

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

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men’s minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.

Why is that others have so much faith in me, while I have so little? Why can’t I have the same belief in me that they have? Why can’t I see in myself, what they do? What is it that makes me, hold myself back? How many more hurdles do I need to overcome? There are so many questions that I have to find the answers to. And I will only find them by focusing and being completely honest with myself.

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

Beware what you set your heart upon. For it shall surely be yours.

Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.