Henry David Thoreau

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.

My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologies. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought – with these I deal.

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

In all debates let truth be thy aim; not victory or an unjust interest; and endeavor to gain rather than to expose thy antagonist.

Our best history is still poetry.

Which is worse? The wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.

What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Sorrow is the rust of the soul and activity will cleanse and brighten it.

A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a threadball thrown at a mark, but the other end remains on the thrower.

You have set up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete that monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of hell: All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.

Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.