Henry David Thoreau
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Morning
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.Collection: Dreams
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.Collection: Respect
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.Collection: Peace
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.Collection: Work
If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.Collection: Government
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.Collection: Business
Faith never makes a confession.Collection: Faith
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.Collection: Society
Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.Collection: Faith
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.Collection: Men
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.Collection: Time
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.Collection: Best
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.Collection: Power
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.Collection: Imagination
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.Collection: Life
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.Collection: Success
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.Collection: Sports
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.Collection: Truth
Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.Collection: Good
What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.Collection: Nature
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.Collection: Work
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.Collection: Life
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.Collection: Life
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.Collection: Music
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.Collection: Funny
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.Collection: Truth
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.Collection: Sad
It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.Collection: Nature
It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.Collection: Imagination
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.Collection: Wisdom
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.Collection: Life
How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.Collection: Government
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?Collection: Men
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.Collection: Best
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.Collection: Friendship
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.Collection: Wisdom
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.Collection: Money
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.Collection: Men
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Men
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.Collection: Friendship
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.Collection: Friendship
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.Collection: Nature
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.Collection: Car
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.Collection: Men
There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.Collection: Alone
Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.Collection: Nature