Henry David Thoreau

If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life.

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

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

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

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

I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.

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

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

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

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

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

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.