Henry David Thoreau

“It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.”

“To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.”

“Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.”

“I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk.”

“Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.”

“Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.”

“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”

“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.”

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

“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”

“As the sun went down, I saw a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews seemed to strain and purify the air, and I was soothed with an infinite stillness. I got the world, as it were, by the nape of the neck, and held it under in the tide of its own events, till it was drowned, and then I let it go down stream like a dead dog. Vast hollow chambers of silence stretched away on every side, and my being expanded in proportion, and filled them. Then first could I appreciate sound, and find it musical.”

“I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.”

“Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

“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.”

“Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?”

“After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.”

“The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have.”

“Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity.”

“The ways by which you may get your money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earn money 'merely' is to be truly idle or worse. If the labourer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.. If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for.. You must get your living by loving.”