Henry David Thoreau

“It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.”

“It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.”

“Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.”

“Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.”

“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.”

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”

“A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.”

“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.”

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

“Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?”

“There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.”

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”

“Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.”

“May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!”

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

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

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.”

“Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.”

“Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.”

“To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.”

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

“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.”