Henry David Thoreau

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.

One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

Things do not change; we change.

The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.

Use every distraction as an object of meditation and they cease to be distractions.

The self divides into ten billion distinct illuminating spirits. Distinguish these without falling into names and classifications.

It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.

I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

Here’s the thing: the world is not going to issue you an engraved invitation to this life.

There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.

Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.

No matter how carefully you plan your goals they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto.

The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.