Henry David Thoreau

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake . . . by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.

Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.

The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.

We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

Life is largely a matter of expectation.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to think otherwise than in the fashion of their own period.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.