Henry David Thoreau

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.

He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul’s estate.

The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond.

One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs.

However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.

They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Does he council you better who bids you, Money, by right means, if you can: but by any means, make money?

When you do the wrong thing, knowing it is wrong, you do so because you haven’t developed the habit of effectively controlling or neutralizing strong inner urges that tempt you, or because you have established the wrong habit and don’t know how to eliminate them effectively.

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism.

I wish for you the wisdom to realize that forgiveness has nothing to do with an apology.

Nature hates calculators.

I hold every man a debtor to his profession.

To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

None of us should be defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done.

It isn’t safe to sit in judgment upon another person’s illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and bad.

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.