Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Nature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance.
One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.
But they who are unconcerned about the consequences of their actions are not therefore unconcerned about their actions.
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.
It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.
It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own characters.
Impulse is, after all, the best linguist; its logic, if not conformable to Aristotle, cannot fail to be most convincing.
The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover it was never fish that you were after.
I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources.
The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine.
Routine is a ground to stand on, a wall to retreat to; we cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it.
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?
So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.
The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids.
Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.
Of all the men who were said to be my contemporaries, it seemed to me that John Brown was the only one who had not died.
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.
I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which these things would be by me unavoidable.
I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.
How prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our bodies; how slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls!
Every blade in the field - Every leaf in the forest - lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up.
The future is too soon the past. So make perseverance your excellence and go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
One can hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and the observation of nature.
The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.
Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of any mountain.
Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well.
I lived in Judea eighteen hundred years ago, but I never knew that there was such a one as Christ among my contemporaries.
Unpremeditated music is the true gauge which measures the current of our thoughts; the very undertow of our life's stream.
I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches.
The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.
Wherever you may seek solitude, men will ferret you out and compel you to belong to their desperate company of oddfellows.
In the planting of the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no more than follow Nature, though they may not know it.
A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.
Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
Unless we do more than simply learn the trade of our time, we are but apprentices, and not yet masters of the art of life.
He who eats the fruit should at least plant the seed; ay, if possible, a better seed than that whose fruit he has enjoyed.
Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.
Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.
As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtlest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky.
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.
He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts.
In civilization, as in a southern latitude, man degenerates at length, and yields to the incursion of more northern tribes.
Having reached the term of his natural life"; Mwould it not be truer to say, Having reached the term of his unnatural life?
After all, I believe it is the style of thought entirely, and the style of expression, which makes the difference in books.
Let us consider under what disadvantages Science has hitherto labored before we pronounce thus confidently on her progress.
The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree's, so copious and so delicious to both sight and scent.