Henry David Thoreau

If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight to the finish spirit is the one… characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers.

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?

All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

There can be no friendship where there is no freedom. Friendship loves a free air, and will not be fenced up in straight and narrow enclosures.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

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.

Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.

Shut your mouth, close your lips, and say something!

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

For Wealth are all things that conduce, to one’s destruction or their use. A standard both to buy and sell, all things from heaven down to hell.

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.

If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools.