What great interval is there between him who is caught in Africa and made a plantation slave of in the South, and him who is caught in New England and made a Unitarian minister of?

In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.

What wisdom, what warning can prevail against gladness? There is no law so strong that a little gladness may not transgress.

The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.

I know of no redeeming qualities in myself but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I fall back on to this ground.

Cowards suffer, heroes enjoy.

I once found a kernel of corn in the middle of a deep wood by Walden, tucked in behind a lichen on a pine, about as high as my head, either by a crow or a squirrel. It was a mile at least from any corn-field.