Those undeserved joys which come uncalled and make us more pleased than grateful are they that sing.

We have built for this world a family mansion, and the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.

Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.

I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.

Wealth is measured by the level of experience in all aspects of life

In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake.

Asked whether or not he believed in an afterlife, Thoreau quipped, "One world at a time."