Henry David Thoreau

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.

I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage.

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

Kindness, love, strength and determination personified!! Madiba reminds me that everything is possible!

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds – not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but – a hatred of all injury.

I teach that all men are mad.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

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.

Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself, and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

Tomorrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.