Henry David Thoreau

Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction,a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse.

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.

Goodness is the only investment which never fails.

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

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.

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.

In all debates let truth be thy aim; not victory or an unjust interest; and endeavor to gain rather than to expose thy antagonist.

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

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

He tosses aside his paint-pots and his words a foot and a half long.

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

Love is only one of many passions.

A man’s interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.