"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"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."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips - not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"I love to be alone. I never found the 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."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

"Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly."

Henry David Thoreau | Walden

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Henry David Thoreau | Walden

toniiu:

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

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"I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day’s devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day."

Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle (1863)

"We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial, - considering what one’s dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition."

Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle (1863)