It is not enough to be a hardworking person. Equally important is the job you are working at.

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

After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

I had but three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship; three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up.

Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life?

Why should we be startled by death? Life is a constant putting off of the mortal coil - coat, cuticle, flesh and bones, all old clothes.

It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses; and the brute degenerates in man's society.