If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are paid for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe.
Henry David ThoreauPhilosophy, certainly, is some account of truths the fragments and very insignificant parts of which man will practice in this workshop; truths infinite and in harmony with infinity, in respect to which the very objects and ends of the so-called practical philosopher will be mere propositions, like the rest.
Henry David ThoreauAll these sounds, the crowing of cocks, the baying of dogs, and the hum of insects at noon, are the evidence of nature's health orsound state.
Henry David ThoreauAs long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.
Henry David ThoreauNature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance.
Henry David Thoreau