Henry David Thoreau

Was there ever such an autumn? And yet there was never such a panic and hard times in the commercial world. The merchants and banks are suspending and failing all the country over, but not the sandbanks, solid and warm, and streaked with bloody blackberry vines.You may run upon them as much as you please – even as the crickets do, and find their account in it. They are the stockholders in these banks, and I hear them creaking their content.

New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion, and perhaps somebody

Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day – farther and wider – and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.

Pity the man who has a character to support – it is worse than a large family – he is silent poor indeed.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation only – not from its privileged classes.

Any 20 year-old who isn’t a liberal doesn’t have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn’t a conservative doesn’t have a brain.

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.

I’ve learned that from my husband, that sort of, you know, ability to not get too high or too low with changes and bumps in the road.

Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while… you don’t do things right once in a while… you do them right all the time. Winning is habit.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are evil.

We have more than we use.

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 Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago: China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it. Theres another Chinese saying about their country which is much more modernit dates only from the fourth century. This is the saying: The tail of China is large and will not be wagged. I like that one. The British democracy approves the principles of movable party heads and unwaggable national tails. It is due to the working of these important forces that I have the honour to be addressing you at this moment.