Henry David Thoreau

We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.

Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

If thou art clean and warm, it is sufficient; for more doth but rob the Poor, and please the Wanton.

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual.

You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.

I think there’s a great beauty to having problems. That’s one of the ways we learn.

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.