Henry David Thoreau

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."

"A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars."

"All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man."

"What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party."

"So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant."

"They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar."

"It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."

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

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

"All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning."

"An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

"As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society."

"Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it."

"Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character."

"Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it."

"Faith never makes a confession."

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

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads."

"I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls."

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."

"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."

"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen."

"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."

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

"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."

"In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society."

"In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high."

"It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature."

"It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."

"It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know."

"Live the life you've dreamed."

"Live your life, do your work, then take your hat."

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."

"Men are born to succeed, not to fail."

"Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve."

"Men have become the tools of their tools."

"Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul."

"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."

"Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand."

"Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain."

"No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well."

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence."

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all."