Henry David Thoreau

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.

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

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.

Worthless people love only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Love is only one of many passions.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.

No matter how hard the past is, we can always begin again.

Ignorance… is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.

Refrain from asking what going to happen tomorrow, and everyday that fortune grants you, count as gain.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

At the end of the day, life is about being happy being who you are.

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He’ll beat you all at piety.

The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.