Henry David Thoreau

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.

The lawyer’s truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character, putting together all their yesterdays and averaging them, we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support, it is worse than a large family, he is the silent poor indeed.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extravagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limit of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced. Extravagance! it depends on how you are yarded.

The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one’s self-approval.

Events tend to recur in cycles.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

All those moments are alive in us today. We may not visit them anymore, very often, but we carry them in our DNA, our blood, our bones; informing the breadth and beauty of who we now are; our lesson to be lived.

In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.

Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.

Love is indeed Heaven upon Earth; since Heaven above would not be Heaven without it: For where there is not Love; there is Fear: But perfect Love casts out Fear. And yet we naturally fear most to offend what we most Love. What we Love, we’ll Hear; what we Love, we’ll Trust; and what we Love, we’ll serve, ay, and suffer for too. If you love me (says our Blessed Redeemer) keep my Commandments. Why? Why then he’ll Love us; then we shall be his Friends; then he’ll send us the Comforter; then whatsoever we ask, we shall receive; and then where he is we shall be also, and that for ever. Behold the Fruits of Love; the Power, Vertue, Benefit and Beauty of Love! Love is above all; and when it prevails in us all, we shall all be Lovely, and in Love with God and one with another.

Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

Your mind will enchain you. Your heart will set you free.