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

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at home.

It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of today.

In respect to religion and the healing art, all nations are still in a state of barbarism. In the most civilized countries the priest is still but a Powwow, and the physician a Great Medicine.

When I would go a-visiting, I find that I go off the fashionable street,--not being inclined to change my dress,--to where man meets man, and not polished shoe meets shoe.

The biggest happiness is when at the end of the year you feel better than at the beginning