THOREAU

A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone.

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.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Any man more right than his neighbor constitutes a majority of one.

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.

How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live!

I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

I should not talk so much about myself were there anybody else whom I knew as well.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

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 he hears, however measured and far away.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life whiche he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.