Henry David Thoreau

What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?

You cannot dream yourself into a character you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion, and perhaps somebody

One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

He was doing missionary work. But from the outset he had little success in convincing his charges of their responsibility for a sin committed at the beginning of creation, one which, as they understood it, they were ready and capable (indeed, they carried charms to assure it) of duplicating themselves. He did no better convincing them that a man had died on a tree to save them all: an act which one old Indian, if Gwyon had translated correctly, regarded as “rank presumption”.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

If a better system is thine, impart it; if not, make use of mine.

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.

A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.

We are all alike, on the inside.

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

If a man owns land, the land owns him.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.