Henry David Thoreau

How novel and original must be each new mans view of the universe - for though the world is so old - and so many books have been written - each object appears wholly undescribed to our experience - each field of thought wholly unexplored - the whole world is an America - a New World.

I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention. Man is but the place where I stand, and the prospect hence is infinite.

I have lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude.

I thrive best on solitude. If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it.

It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live.

The Heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high.

All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.

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.

City life is millions of people being lonesome together.

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.

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

In a world of peace and love, music would be the universal language.

Surely joy is the condition of life.

The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind.

We can never have enough of Nature.

One is wise to cultivate the tree that bears fruit in our soul.

Of what significance are the things you can forget.

Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.

Our last deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity.

A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East.

But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization to you: "Home is home, be it never so homely."