Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is bu...
My purpose in going to Walden Pondwas not to live cheaply nor to live dearly therebut to transact some private business,with the fewest obstacles…It's a good place for business...
Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret...
Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.
In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in...
If then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up...
I walk out into a Nature such as the old prophets and poets, Manu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name it America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius, nor Columbus, nor the r...
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; tha...
I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own r...
I made a study of the ancient and indispensable art of bread-making,
I love a broad margin to my life.
I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to...
I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom in these respects, not only less education would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary expense of ge...
I am of the nature of Stone. It takes the summer’s sun to warm it.
I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or abean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonelythan the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north st...
How can he remember well his ignorance—which his growth requires—who has so often to use his knowledge?
How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it?
Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it.