I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

Faith never makes a confession.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

Live the life you've dreamed.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

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

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed... Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

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

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.

That government is best which governs least.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

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

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

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

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

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.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

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.

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

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

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Things do not change; we change.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

Be not simply good - be good for something.

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

The heart is forever inexperienced.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.