Henry David Thoreau

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

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

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

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

The only antidote to materialism is simplicity.

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.

Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!

The more you know, the less you need.

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of any thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?

It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.

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

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

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

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

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.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I am surprised to find how soon I have forgotten them.

I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will but live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial.