The principal, the only, thing a man makes, is his condition of fate. Though commonly he does not know it, nor put up a sign to this effect, "My own destiny made and mended here." (Not yours.) He is a master workman in the business. He works twenty-four hours a day at it, and gets it done. Whatever else he neglects or botches, no man was ever known to neglect this work. A great many pretend to make shoes chiefly, and would scout the idea that they make the hard times which they experience.
Henry David ThoreauA book should contain pure discoveries, glimpses of terra firma, though by shipwrecked mariners, and not the art of navigation by those who have never been out of sight of land.
Henry David ThoreauOne can hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and the observation of nature.
Henry David ThoreauThe walls that fence our fields, as well as modern Rome, and not less the Parthenon itself, are all built of ruins.
Henry David Thoreau