Henry David Thoreau

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.

After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might.

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.

Goodness is the only investment which never fails.

I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, an they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

Sir, I have no objection to a man’s drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

The dice of God are always loaded.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the law rules, and the people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.

You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.

Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are.

Every burned book enlightens the world.

Something made greater by ourselves and in turn that makes us greater.