Henry David Thoreau

Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?

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

Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

For who is pleased with himself.

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man.

Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

A great man is always willing to be little.

A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul: a sick body is a prison.

Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.

He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

Why harass with eternal purposes a mind to weak to grasp them?