Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners?

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.

I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.

Asked whether or not he believed in an afterlife, Thoreau quipped, "One world at a time."

In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round,--for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost,--do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature.