Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.
It is strange to talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.
The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild, and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World.
So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.
We discover a new world every time we see the earth again after it has been covered for a season with snow.
When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum for us; we hear the notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn.
Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!
Poetry implies the whole truth, philosophy expresses only a particle of it.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
The Friend asks no return but that his Friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other’s hopes. They are kind to each other’s dreams.
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.
Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up.
I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.