Henry David Thoreau

The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology.

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.

After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame.

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.

Once we recognize that all things are impermanent, we have no problem enjoying them.

Is not every man sometimes a radical in politics? Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick, or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused; when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.

A picture is a poem without words.

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.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic also.

The endearing elegance of female friendship.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my answer.

Drunkenness spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans man. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous, and mad.