By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.
Henry David ThoreauNot by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirth-fulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it.
Henry David ThoreauIt is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part.
Henry David ThoreauIt's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.
Henry David ThoreauThey who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.
Henry David Thoreau