Henry David Thoreau

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

I am a sky gazer. The sky, it pulls at me. Its amazing eternal expanse of breathtaking beauty calls me back to my senses, stretches my awareness, soothes my eyes, opens my heart, stills me. I feel a soft soul longing to be up there, in the vastness, amongst the clouds that are alive and billow and skud and glow; metamorphosing from perfection into perfection. A constantly changing canvas brushed by magic.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body, and it addeth no small reverence to men’s manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.

I think that age is irrelevant. We’re all pretty much spiritual beings – I consider myself to be about eighty-five. I feel like I’m ancient, like two thousand years old.

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

Events tend to recur in cycles.

The walking of Man is falling forwards.

Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.

The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.

He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature.