Henry David Thoreau

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

A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as this brain.

As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

My favorite nightcap, after all this time, is still the cocktail of you.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

There is a difference between being convinced and being stubborn.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.

Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.

Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.

Rich men without convictions are more dangerous in modern society than poor women without chastity.

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles… but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief -a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.