Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge college is as solitary as a dervis in the desert.
Henry David ThoreauAs naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done.
Henry David ThoreauThe success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.
Henry David ThoreauI would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Henry David ThoreauA worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.
Henry David Thoreau