Henry David Thoreau

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

When I hear the hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules of theirs. I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless as a lamb’s bleat.

The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.

A perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

Cities force growth and make people talkative and entertaining, but they also make them artificial.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others

Friendship . . . is an Union of Spirits, a Marriage of Hearts, and the Bond thereof Vertue.

Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Conversation enriches the understanding; but solitude is the school of genius.