Henry David Thoreau

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

Don’t think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

I want to be free; to escape. I use my pen as oars; the paper as my boat. I fill these pages to keep me afloat. I ride the waves of turmoil, so I can paddle away to calmer seas.

If you employed study, thinking, and planning time daily, you could develop and use the power that can change the course of your destiny.

Be passionate about something and lean to that strength.

Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.

One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop.

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.

With a burst of joy, my heels sprout wings, smile dancing. My heart sings like a bird caged, set free to soar, senses heightened like never before. Life. Is. Good.

Who can guess how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.