Henry David Thoreau

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.

Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit – not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. Its throes will heave our exuviate from their graves.

Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.

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.

Wars are necessary to teach us lessons we seem unable to learn any other way.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

I have a deep sympathy with war, it so apes the gait and bearing of the soul.

Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

It is a sweet and seemly thing to die for one’s country.

A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

People didn’t want war. We were forced in it. How fast we finish it depends on how free a hand our generals and admirals have. The less interference they get from the politicians the quicker they’ll end it.

Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.