Henry David Thoreau

That devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly, introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the country’s champion, the Moore of Moore Hall, to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?

How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

There is nothing you can say in answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times, and they always embarrass me-I always feel that they have not said enough.

A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.

The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money’s sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal.That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

Perhaps his might be one of the natures where a wise estimate of consequences is fused in the fires of that passionate belief which determines the consequences it believes in.

The pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we’re so fond of it.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if has a headache.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are.