There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted or enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles.

Many have believed that Walden reached quite through to the other side of the globe.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

To be awake is to be alive.

The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact.... In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold.

The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it.