In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.
I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience, and was reminded that ourlife should be lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a flower.
The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the “means” are increased.
To live a better life, – this surely can be done.
I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is.
This life we live is a strange dream, and I don’t believe at all any account men give of it.
The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere makeshifts, and a shirking of the real business of life, – chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.
What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior.
A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts.
It is not enough that our life is an easy one. We must live on the stretch, retiring to our rest like soldiers on the eve of a battle, looking forward to the strenuous sortie of the morrow.
We do not live by justice, but by grace.
Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.
I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.
Thus was my first year’s life in the woods completed; and the second year was similar to it. I finally left Walden September 6th,1847.
Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic.
We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting to me.
But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.
Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him.
The whole of the day should not be daytime; there should be one hour, if not more, which the day did not bring forth.
Some hard and dry book in a dead language, which you have found it impossible to read at home, but for which you still have a lingering regard, is the best to carry with you on a journey.