If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist.

If however the law is so promulgated that it of necessity makes you an agent of injustices against another, then I say to you ... break the law.

Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present.

Truth strikes us from behind and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad daylight.

I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that Nature with which I am acquainted.

If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am constantly doing by being what I am.

I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low-flying bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my head, along the shore. So, turning the other side of my half-clad body to the fire, I sought slumber again.