Henry David Thoreau

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

We are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspected.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.

Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The first thing a great person does, is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.

Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you who you’ll turn out to be.

My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.

I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

Sir, I have no objection to a man’s drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.