In order to die, you must first have lived.

The music of all creatures has to do with their loves, even of toads and frogs. Is it not the same with man?

Philosophy, certainly, is some account of truths the fragments and very insignificant parts of which man will practice in this workshop; truths infinite and in harmony with infinity, in respect to which the very objects and ends of the so-called practical philosopher will be mere propositions, like the rest.

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

Direct your eye inward, and you'll find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be / Expert in home-cosmography

Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you to let you alone.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.