Henry David Thoreau

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.

The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them.

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis.

To be in time is to be asleep: to be awake is to be in eternity.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbor to be governed, but he himself doesn’t want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.

Lilac anemone, paper petals, turning tentatively to face a pale sun opening to reveal a lightness of being, a flash of gold, a fresh resilience, contented silence, the dawn of a new day.

An empire is an immense egotism.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new.

In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

I do not like work even when someone else does it.

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.

Any experience of reality is indescribable!

Blows are sarcasm’s turned stupid.