Walden: or, Life in the woods
The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden: or, Life in the woods
None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden: or, Life in the woods
As for Clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cove
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Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. " Do you wish to buy any baskets ?" he asked. " No, we do not want any," was the reply. " What!" exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, " do you mean to starve us ? " Having seen his industri
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When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden: or, Life in the woods
In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden: or, Life in the woods
I sa^, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit ? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never proc
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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. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a t
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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.