There is ripe fruit over your head.

The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine.

There is one thought for the field, another for the house. I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house.

All men are partially buried in the grave of custom, and of some we see only the crown of the head above ground. Better are the physically dead, for they more lively rot. Even virtue is no longer such if it be stagnant. A man's life should be constantly as fresh as this river. It should be the same channel, but a new water every instant.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

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

Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are NOT good?