Henry David Thoreau

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.

Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.

For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.

If I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.

Find people who will make you better.

Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it.

There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.

Who prays for Satan? Who, in 1,800 years, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

I was brought up to hate and fear liberty. I came to love it. That is the secret of my whole career.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

O Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.