“Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride and prejudice, appearance and delusion, through the alluvium which covers the globe, through poetry and philosophy and religion, through church and state, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, till we come to a hard bottom that rocks in place which we can call reality and say, "This is and no mistake.”
Henry David Thoreau“There is no remedy for love but to love more."- Henry David Thoreau”
Henry David Thoreau“He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.”
Henry David Thoreau“This American government—what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.”
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience“Read the best books first, otherwise you’ll find you do not have time. - Henry David Thoreau”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul“As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.”
Henry David Thoreau“We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.”
Henry David Thoreau“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
Henry David Thoreau“The man who goes alone can start today but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready. ”
Henry David Thoreau“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.”
Henry David Thoreau