Henry David Thoreau

The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.

Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.

For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities – a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces –a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.

History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot

If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.

The sense of an entailed disadvantage – the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But in the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one among a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and makes the imagination tender.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.

The more experiments you make the better.

Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.

Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.