Henry David Thoreau

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

If I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

The eye is the jewel of the body.

To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.

You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.

I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

As Puppets are to Men, and Babies to Children, so is Man’s Workmanship to God’s: We are the Picture, he the Reality.

What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself.

Of all debts men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their moneys worth, except for these.

There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.