There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.
There is nothing more difficult to find than oneself.
Music is the crystallization of sound.
Unpremeditated music is the true gauge which measures the current of our thoughts; the very undertow of our life’s stream.
I have great faith in a seed.
I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
It is the stars as not yet known to science that I would know, the stars which the lonely traveler knows.
Beware of any profession for which you must buy new clothes.
Love is no individual’s experience; and though we are imperfect mediums, it does not partake of our imperfection; though we are finite, it is infinite and eternal...
There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand. I love a broad margin to my life.
When the true criminals are running around free, the only honorable place for a decent human being is in prisons.
I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.
Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons.
I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse.
A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a governor.
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.