"What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?"

"Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid."

"If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man - and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages - it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."

"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."

"Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant."

"Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men."

"What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?"

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

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

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

"Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are."

"The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time."

"Between whom there is hearty truth there is love."

"Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air-to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light."

"When a dog runs at you whistle for him."

"I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don't get enough for this year, I shall cry all the next."

"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate."

"Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves. In those driving northeast rains which tried the village houses so, when the maids stood ready with mop and pail in front entries to keep the deluge out, I sat behind my door in my little house, which was all entry, and thoroughly enjoyed its protection."

"Every people have gods to suit their circumstances."

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

"A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; - not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself."

"I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try who will get [to Fitchburg from Concord] first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents ... Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive there some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad reached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you; and as for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your acquaintance altogether."

"Genius is not a retainer to any emperor, or is its material silver, or gold, or marble, except to a trifling extent."

"If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment."

"Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them."

"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride and prejudice, appearance and delusion, through the alluvium which covers the globe, through poetry and philosophy and religion, through church and state, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, till we come to a hard bottom that rocks in place which we can call reality and say, "This is and no mistake."

"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."

"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. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written, for there is a memorable interval between the spoken and the written language, the language heard and the language read."

"I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while."

"As for Doing-good...I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution."

"Yet, for my part, I was never usually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary. I am glad to have drunk water so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater's heaven. I would fain keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness. I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fail when I am tempted by them! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America. Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?"

"Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity."

"The savage in man is never quite eradicated."

"If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know how much truth is stronger than errors, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence."

"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than to be crowded on a velvet cushion."

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

"I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement."

"It is never too late to give up your prejudices."

"What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook."

"How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends that we may go and meet their ideal cousins."

"Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth."

"It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always."

"We have the St. Vitus' dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still."

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

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

"As for style of writing if one has anything to say it drops from him simply and directly as a stone falls to the ground."

"If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating and sublime."

"Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are."

"The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on every side; and where were walls and fences, we see forms stretching in frolic gambols across the dusky landscape, as if Nature had strewn her fresh designs over the fields by night as models for man's art."

"We are constantly invited to be what we are."