I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
Henry David ThoreauThe higher the mountain on which you stand, the less change in the prospect from year to year, from age to age. Above a certain height there is no change.
Henry David ThoreauNo man who acts from a sense of duty ever puts the lesser duty above the greater. No man has the desire and the ability to work onhigh things, but he has also the ability to build himself a high staging.
Henry David ThoreauAll men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.
Henry David ThoreauSincerity is a great but rare virtue, and we pardon to it much complaining, and the betrayal of many weaknesses.
Henry David ThoreauIt is not every man who can be a Christian, even in a very moderate sense, whatever education you give him. It is a matter of constitution and temperament, after all. He may have to be born again many times. I have known many a man who pretended to be a Christian, in whom it was ridiculous, for he had no genius for it. It is not every man who can be a free man, even.
Henry David Thoreau