Walden
The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and health of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden
The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden
As with our colleges, so with a hundred “modern improvements”; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden
have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden
The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us!
Henry David Thoreau • Walden
Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.