Henry David Thoreau

Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Things do not change; we change.

The only wealth is life.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

A good scare is worth more than good advice.

The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.

Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.

Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real center of the household.

Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

The basis of good manners is self-reliance.

The Country is both the Philosopher’s Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God.

The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.

By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

Death then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die.

If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.