Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
“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 or far away.”
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings
“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”
― Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”
“I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
Michael Lemon Portfolio 