Henry David Thoreau

I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.

I have lived some thirty-odd years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.

Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.

The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

Suspicions that the mind, of itself, gathers, are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished and put into men’s heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.

The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one’s clothes.

Once we recognize that all things are impermanent, we have no problem enjoying them.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.