Henry David Thoreau

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

The stars are the apexes of what triangles!

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

He that has given today may, if he so please, take away tomorrow.

Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.