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| Henry David Thoreau
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. A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. Absolutely speaking, do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case. All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong. An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. Be true to your work, your word, and your friend. Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution --such call I good books. Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet. Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid. Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new. Every man is the builder of a temple called his body. Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced. Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined. Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech. He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate. He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. {from "Reading" in Waldon (1854)} How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. 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. 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. I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. I have learned this at least by my experiment: that 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. I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark. I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated? 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. If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music in which he hears, however measured, or far away. 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. If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I'm sure that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone. 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. If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; there is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see. In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high. In the long run, men only hit what they aim at. It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature. It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive. It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God. It takes two to speak the truth--one to speak, and another to hear.Law never made men a whit more just. Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame. 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. Men are born to succeed, not to fail. Men have become the tools of their tools. Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas in nature. Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand. None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm. Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. Our live is frittered away by detail.... Simplify, simplify.Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them. Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. That government is best which governs least. That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. 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. The cost of a things is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. 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. The heart is forever inexperienced. The language of friendship is not words but meanings.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. The man for whom law exists – the man of forms, the Conservative, is a tame man. The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.The only wealth is life.The perception of beauty is a moral test. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures. The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. There is no remedy but to love more.Things do not change, we change. This world is but a canvas to our imagination. To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. To enhance the quality of the day... That is the highest of the arts. To inherit property is not to be born -- it is to be still-born, rather. To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect. We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches. We live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think we thus lose some respect for one another. We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see. We were born to succeed, not to fail. What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook. What is sour in the house a bracing walk in the woods makes sweet.What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder? What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? 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. When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable, and to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place - a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow of Nature.When it is time to die, let us not discover that we never lived. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. You must not only aim aright, but draw the bow with all your might. [Water is] the only drink for a wise man. |
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