I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

The fault finder will find faults even in paradise and thereby miss the joys that recognition of the positives bring.

When it was proposed to me to go abroad, rub oft some rust, and better my condition in a worldly sense, I fear lest my life will lose some of its homeliness. If these fields and streams and woods, the phenomena of nature here, and the simple occupations of the inhabitants should cease to interest and inspire me, no culture or wealth would atone for the loss.

I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with thosewhich are insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation.

I am never rich in money, and I am never meanly poor.

It is said that a rogue does not look you in the face, neither does an honest man look at you as if he had his reputation to establish.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.