Henry David Thoreau

Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

Why harass with eternal purposes a mind to weak to grasp them?

No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

The most dangerous thing is illusion.

Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

You’ve got a big, big problem if you get caught up in what people say. If you’re gonna live for what people say, you might as well lay down and forget it. Because it doesn’t work that way.

Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

I have not a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming vices.