You are expected to do your duty, not in spite of everything but one, but in spite of everything.
āJournal, 24 September 1859You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.
āWaldenYou cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day’s devotion to know and to posses the wealth of a day.
ā"Life without Principle"You conquer fate by thought. If you think the fatal thought of men and institutions, you need never pull the trigger. The consequences of thinking inevitably follow.
āJournal, 6 May 1858You glide along the distant wood-side, full of joy and expectation, seeing nothing but beauty, hearing nothing but music, as free as the fox-colored sparrow . . .
āJournal,Ā 27 January 1858You may find a cape which runs six miles into the sea that has not a man of moral courage upon it.
āJournal, 16 November 1858You may think this harsh advise, but, believe me, it is sincere.
āThoreau to Samuel Ripley Bartlett, 19 January 1860You might say of a philosopher that he was in this world as a spectator.
āJournal, 31 October 1850You see the moonlight reflected from particular stumps in the recesses of the forest, as if she selected what to shine on.
ā"Night and Moonlight"You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.
āJournal, 8 February 1857