Henry David Thoreau

Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

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

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

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.

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

It doesn’t matter that your dream came true if you spent your whole life sleeping.

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

The measure of a great leader, is their success in bringing everyone around to their opinion twenty years later.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

The responsibility of tolerance lies in those who have the wider vision.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another. The gathering in of the clouds with the last rush and dying breath of the wind, and then the regular dripping of twigs and leaves the country over, the impression of inward comfort and Sociableness, the drenched stubble and trees that drop beads on you as you pass, their dim outline seen through the rain on all sides drooping in sympathy with yourself. These are my undisputed territory. This is Nature’s English comfort.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

The mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.

I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.