Henry David Thoreau

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

Be not simply good – be good for something.

Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone… I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.

A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful-while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly.

Big doors swing on little hinges.

I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.

Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.

Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are.

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

Try not. Do or do not… there is no try.

We should come home from adventures and perils and discoveries with new experiences and character.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

When you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.

Rebellions of the belly are the worst.

Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.