Henry David Thoreau

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth.

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

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good;be good for something.All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. Let nothing come between you and the light. Respect men and brothers only. When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,

City life is millions of people being lonesome together.

Of what significance are the things you can forget.

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers!

All diseases run into one, old age.

Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some area of native land where it may get the love of tender kinship from the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one’s own homestead.

The English never draw a line without blurring it.

Life is largely a matter of expectation.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.

There is nothing assured to mortals.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

That man is idle who can do something better.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.