Henry David Thoreau

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.

Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man, - you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind, - I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.

Man wanted a home, a place for warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

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.

Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food

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.

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

We soon get through with nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect. [So why not suspect good rather than bad in events, people and life and thereby find it more?]

As I love nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and winter, I love thee, my Friend.

My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought - with these I deal.

You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.

Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as are associated with one's native place. She is most significant to a lover. A lover of Nature is preeminently a lover of man. If I have no friend, what is Nature to me? She ceases to be morally significant. . .

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.