Henry David Thoreau

Water is the only drink for a wise man.

It takes two to speak truth – one to speak, and another to hear.

Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love.

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

Poetry implies the whole truth, philosophy expresses only a particle of it.

One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

We mustn’t be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich, something for nothing.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do what is right.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all the management of human affairs.

The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?

Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable – any real insight or broad human sentiment.