Henry David Thoreau

I do not know how to distinguish between waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?

When it is time to die, let us not discover that we never lived.

let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

We are born as innocents. We are polluted by advice.

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 sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a west as distant and as fair as that into which the Sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those mountain ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded by his rays.

There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate, and not a grain more. ... A man sees only what concerns him.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man.

So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent.

ليس كافيًا أن تكون مشغولًا. فكذلك النمل. السؤال هو: بماذا نحن مشغولون ؟