It is desirable that a man live in all respects so simply and preparedly that if an enemy take the town… he can walk out the gate empty-handed and without anxiety.

Truth strikes us from behind and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad daylight.

A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is...

The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them. Most men have learned to read to serve a paltry convenience, as they have learned...

This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in...

See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own...

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...

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long...

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed

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...

As for Doing-good,that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried itfairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agreewith my constitution. Probably I should not...

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.

Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be...

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.

The tragedy in a man’s life is what dies inside of him while he lives.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

Every blade in the field – Every leaf in the forest – lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up.

Se uma planta não pode viver de acordo com sua natureza, ela morre. O mesmo ocorre com um homem.

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in...

Tatsächlich hat der arbeitende Mensch heute nicht mehr die Muße, sein Leben Tag für Tag wirklich sinnvoll zu gestalten.Wahrhaft menschliche Beziehungen zu seinen Mitmenschen kann er sich nicht leisten; es würde den Marktwert seiner Arbeit...

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of...

We are more of the earth,Farther from heaven these days.

A man, any man, will go considerably out of his way to pick up a silver dollar; but here are golden words, which the wisest men of antiquity have uttered, and whose worth the wise...

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

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.

What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.

As the sun went down, I saw a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews seemed to strain and purify the air, and I was soothed with an infinite stillness. I got...

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?

There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of...

Simplify, simplify.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As...

Morning brings back the heroic ages. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of...

When I consider that the nobler animal have been exterminated here – the cougar, the panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, dear, the beaver, the turkey and so forth and so forth, I cannot but...

The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line,...

I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

Genius is not a retainer to any emperor, or is its material silver, or gold, or marble, except to a trifling extent.

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

Men say they know many things;But lo! they have taken wings, —The arts and sciences,And a thousand appliances;The wind that blowsIs all that any body knows

There is a low mist in the woods—It is a good day to study lichens.

I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things.

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...

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