"Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a west as distant and as fair as that into which the Sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those mountain ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded by his rays."

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

"Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem."

"There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor."

"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."

"So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre."

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

"Whate'er we leave to God God does and blesses us."

"The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard."

"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."

"There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of 'expediency.' There is no such thing as sliding up hill. In morals, the only sliders are backsliders."

"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."

"Man is the artificer of his own happiness."

"What is called genius is the abundance of life and health."

"Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them."

"It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate."

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

"What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new."

"It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women."

"Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself."

"There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony."

"Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing, but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout."

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

"If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?"

"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."

"Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven."

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

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

"A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town."

"He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles."

"A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars."

"It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course."

"It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such."

"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."

"Goodness is the only investment that never fails."

"If misery loves company, misery has company enough."

"We like that a sentence should read as if its author had he held a plough instead of a pen could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end."

"Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?"

"The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest."

"Experience is in the fingers and the head. The heart is inexperienced."

"In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore though they should fall immediately they had better aim at something high."

"I have travelled a good deal in Concord."

"He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair."

"If a man walk 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 whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen."

"In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world."

"Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years."

"I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry. 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."

"I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born."

"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."

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."