Henry David Thoreau

Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.

We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.

One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve.

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

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.

We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.

Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be… those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes… those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober — minded men.

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.

I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.

Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.

It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.