Henry David Thoreau

The sun is but a morning star.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

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.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.

We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.

However small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.

There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts … good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt. They’re not painful. That’s not just with somebody you want to marry, but it’s with the friends that you choose. It’s with the people you surround yourselves with.

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.