Henry David Thoreau

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.

As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

Was there ever such an autumn? And yet there was never such a panic and hard times in the commercial world. The merchants and banks are suspending and failing all the country over, but not the sandbanks, solid and warm, and streaked with bloody blackberry vines.You may run upon them as much as you please – even as the crickets do, and find their account in it. They are the stockholders in these banks, and I hear them creaking their content.

Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.

Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.

Revolutions go not backward.

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

Fidelity is the sister of justice.

Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

The betrothed and accepted lover has lost the wildest charms of his maiden by her acceptance. She was heaven while he pursued her, but she cannot be heaven if she stoops to one such as he!

I do not like work even when someone else does it.

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.