Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.

March to the beat of your own drummer.

Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.

For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman;... but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.

If I ever see more clearly at one time than at another, the medium through which I see is clearer.

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill.

Love does not analyze its object.