Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
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.
Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rar...
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern wo...
In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first...
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.
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.
If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.
There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.
It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware...
A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a governor.
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
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 eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and brin...
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.
I have travelled a good deal in Concord.
Do what you love. Know your own bone gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
Man wanted a home, a place for warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.
I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.