However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Soul]

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Speech]

The stars are the apexes of what triangles!
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Stardom]

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few went to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [State]

You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Success]

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Success]

We were born to succeed, not to fail.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Success]

The sun is but a morning star.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Sun]

We are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspected.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Suspicion]

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Taxes and Taxation]

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Technology]

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Tenderness]

A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as this brain.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Thoughts and Thinking]

Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Thoughts and Thinking]

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Thoughts and Thinking]

Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Thoughts and Thinking]

How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Thoughts and Thinking]

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Thoughts and Thinking]

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Thoughts and Thinking]

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
~ Henry David Thoreau - [Time and Time Management]