We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects.
Henry David ThoreauFriendship is evanescent in every man's experience, and remembered like heat lightning in past summers.
Henry David ThoreauAs polishing expresses the vein in marble, and grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The hero is the sole patron of music.
Henry David ThoreauIf a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would ... [be] the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.
Henry David ThoreauOne inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head.
Henry David Thoreau