Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return-prepared to send beck our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, brother and sister, and wife and child and friends and never see them again,-if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled your affairs and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.
Henry David ThoreauWe only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves, that there may be grounds enough for friendship.
Henry David ThoreauThere 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.
Henry David ThoreauLet us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.
Henry David ThoreauEvery sacred book, successively, has been accepted in the faith that it was to be the final resting-place of the sojourning soul;but after all, it was but a caravansary which supplied refreshment to the traveler, and directed him farther on his way to Isphahan or Bagdat. Thank God, no Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the world, but we are freemen of the universe, and not sentenced to any caste.
Henry David Thoreau