And if the civilized man's pursuits are no worthier than the savage's, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaininggross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?

We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.

Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.

A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.

Critical acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the past cannot be presented; we cannot know what we are not. But one veilhangs over past, present, and future, and it is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is. Where a battle has been fought, you will find nothing but the bones of men and beasts; where a battle is being fought, there are hearts beating.

In ancient days the Pythagoreans were used to change names with each other,--fancying that each would share the virtues they admired in the other.

Thus was my first year's life in the woods completed; and the second year was similar to it. I finally left Walden September 6th,1847.