In the words of Henry David Thoreau:
I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful.
The savage lives simply through ignorance and idleness or laziness, but the philosopher lives simply through wisdom.
Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye. He must look through and beyond her.
The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched.
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
We cannot put a noose around another man's neck without first hanging ourselves.
It is not worth while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.
Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Since all things are good, men fail at last to distinguish which is the bane and which the antidote.
I would fain keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness.
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.
The future is too soon the past. So make perseverance your excellence and go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we might go and meet their ideal cousins.
So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.
It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.
The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body.
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
The three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest.
One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense.
The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost.
The cost of a thing is something called life which is given in exchange for it.
As long as I have the friendship of the sesasons life will never be a burden to me.
It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.
They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy evil, that they may no longer have have it to regret.
It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.
Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.
Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.
The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind.
I learned to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of nature, rather than a member of society.
Water is a pioneer which the settler follows, taking advantage of its improvements.
Our taste is too delicate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope.
He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.
As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.
They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.
While some men believe in the infinite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.
Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty, as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds.
Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you.
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves.
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
Faint heart never won true friend. O my friend, may it come to pass, once, that when you are my friend I may be yours.
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent.
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.
Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
That we have but little faith is not sad, but that we have little faithfulness. By faithfulness faith is earned.
It is not enough that we are truthful; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful about.
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.
But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost.
Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them.
The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.
be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.
Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.
The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover it was never fish that you were after.
Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive.
The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond.
There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear.
The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow,-one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.
This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.
More Quotes More Quotes More Quotes
