Henry David Thoreau

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.

Excellence must be pursued, it must be wooed with all of one’s might and every bit of effort that we have each day there’s a new encounter, each week is a new challenge.

Danger – if you meet it promptly and without flinching – you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

Do you know that the tendrils of graft and corruption have become mighty interlacing roots so that even men who would like to be honest are tripped and trapped by them?

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

The reward of one’s duty is the power to fulfill another.

We’re so infatuated with studying labels that we forget to read between the lines of one another.

Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.

Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.

To inherit property is not to be born – it is to be still-born, rather.

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.