Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
— Henry David Thoreau
Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.
There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?
There is no just and serene criticism as yet.
There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.
In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.
Faith never makes a confession.
If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
Simplify, simplify.
The universe is wider than our views of it.
I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.
Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.
Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.
A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.
There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.
Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.
There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.
There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.
Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.
Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?
To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.
'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.
There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.
Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.
As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.
Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.
It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
Live the life you've dreamed.
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
