Henry David Thoreau
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.Collection: Alone
They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.Collection: Architecture
Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.Collection: Love
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.Collection: Men
The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.Collection: Men
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.Collection: Good
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.Collection: Family
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.Collection: Morning
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.Collection: Thanksgiving
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.Collection: Alone
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.Collection: Money
I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.Collection: Death
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.Collection: Dreams
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.Collection: Inspirational
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.Collection: Inspirational
What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.Collection: Health
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.Collection: Environmental
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.Collection: Environmental
The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.Collection: Happiness
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.Collection: Happiness
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.Collection: Work
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.Collection: Government
'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.Collection: Health
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.Collection: Health
As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.Collection: Society
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.Collection: Good
Be not simply good - be good for something.Collection: Good
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.Collection: Business
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?Collection: Great
There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.Collection: Nature
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed... Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.Collection: Faith
Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!Collection: Beauty
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?Collection: Space
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.Collection: Morning
The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.Collection: Time
The heart is forever inexperienced.Collection: Relationship
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.Collection: Men
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.Collection: Knowledge
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.Collection: Age
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.Collection: Time
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.Collection: Chance
If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.Collection: Legal
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.Collection: Money
Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?Collection: Nature
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.Collection: Nature
To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.Collection: Nature
The perception of beauty is a moral test.Collection: Beauty
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.Collection: Wisdom
There is no remedy for love but to love more.Collection: Love
The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.Collection: Truth