Henry David Thoreau

Of what significance are the things you can forget.

We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

To inherit property is not to be born – it is to be still-born, rather.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.

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.

Earth laughs in flowers.

You don’t create things, you discover things.

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk.

Let us my friends snatch our opportunity from the passing day.

I always like people who have developed long and hard, particularly through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think that what they arrive at is, usually, deeper and more beautiful than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning.

As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.

There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

Beauty rests on necessities.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

Why do the words I want to say, struggle to come out of my mouth. Why does fear have such a grip over me. I shouldn’t have to battle to say all the complimentary things I so desperately want to share. It shouldn’t be this hard, that I have to force myself; it’s wrong that such loving words, should have to be spoken under such duress. I’m aware of how wrong it is, but withholding is all I have known, even though I desire so badly to share my thoughts and feelings with you, as freely as you do with me.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.