Henry David Thoreau

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

That devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly, introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the country’s champion, the Moore of Moore Hall, to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?

Do what you love. Know you own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

Sobriety, severity, and self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

No matter how carefully you plan your goals they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto.

Youth gets together with their materials to build a bridge to the moon or maybe a palace on earth; then in middle age they decide to build a woodshed with them instead.

When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.

Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

Regardless of who you are or what you have been, you can be what you want to be.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face.

I said there was nothing so convincing to an Indian as a general massacre. If he could not approve of the massacre, I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap and education. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run; because a half-massacred Indian may recover, but if you educate him and wash him, it is bound to finish him some time or other.

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

In the end, people will judge you anyway, so don’t live our life impressing other – live your life impressing yourself.

It is admirable to consider how many Millions of People come into, and go out of the World, Ignorant of themselves, and of the World they have lived in.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

As Love ought to bring them together, so it is the best Way to keep them well together.