Henry David Thoreau

Why should they be­gin dig­ging their graves as soon as they are born?

Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those fables?

A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below—such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages.

I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.

blun­der­ing

su­per­flu­ously

How many a poor im­mor­tal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smoth­ered un­der its load, creep­ing down the road of life

The finest qual­i­ties of our na­ture, like the bloom on fruits, can be pre­served only by the most del­i­cate han­dling. Yet we do not treat our­selves nor one an­other thus ten­derly.

As if you could kill time with­out in­jur­ing eter­nity.

This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one cen­tre.