Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
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.
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.
As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full.
The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
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.
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
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.
Things do not change; we change.
Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
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.
Law never made men a whit more just.
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.
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
Every generation laughs at the old fashions but religiously follows the new.