I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.
Henry David ThoreauGovernment is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.
Henry David ThoreauIt is the stars as not yet known to science that I would know, the stars which the lonely traveler knows.
Henry David ThoreauWhen we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed anddrawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men,--those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.
Henry David ThoreauThe slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur.
Henry David Thoreau