Henry David Thoreau

The Indian...stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison.

We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes.

Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.

Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.

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

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.

Aeschylus had a clear eye for the commonest things. His genius was only an enlarged common sense.

You might as well think to go in pursuit of the rainbow, and embrace it on the next hill, as to embrace the whole of poetry even in thought.

Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself.

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another's. We see so much only as we possess.

Sphere Music — Some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then settle to earth again like dust; such are Noise, Discord, Jargon. But such only as spring heavenward, and I may catch from steeples and hilltops in their upward …

Truth, Goodness, Beauty — those celestial thrins, Continually are born; e'en now the Universe, With thousand throats, and eke with greener smiles, Its joy confesses at their recent birth.

A gun gives you the body, not the bird.

You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him ... he will be surrounded by grandeur.

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on?

Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop …

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?

When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?

Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough, What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town, If juster battles are enacted now Between the ants upon this hummock's crown?