Random Quotes from the teacher Henry David Thoreau
The mass of men lead quiet lives of desperation.
I wanted to live deep and suck out all he marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swatch and shave close, to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it or if it were sublime to know it by experience and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.
How novel and original must be each new mans view of the universe - for though the world is so old - and so many books have been written - each object appears wholly undescribed to our experience - each field of thought wholly unexplored - the whole world is an America - a New World.
Birds never sing in caves.
With all your science can you tell me how it is, and when it is, that light comes into the soul?
If you have built your castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Not put the foundations under them.
How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
To be awake is to be alive.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
