Henry David Thoreau

I know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, or thoughts are affection; and am sensible of certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is no part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you.

Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

My greatest fear is getting bored.

In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn’t know what he is doing.

Don’t be afraid of fear. Because it sharpens you, it challenges you, it makes you stronger; and when you run away from fear, you also run away from the opportunity to be your best possible self.

Don’t let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face, and there will be barriers, be external, not internal. Fortune does favor the bold, and I promise that you will never know what you’re capable of unless you try.

I am pretty fearless. You know why? Because I don’t handle fear very well; I’m not a good terrified person.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

Fear came in so much in my life that it did everything but completely stop me.

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

There’s an old German proverb to the effect that fear makes the wolf bigger than he is,and that is true.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility. Make decisions based on what should happen, not what shouldn’t.