“There is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected.”

“It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.”

“I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”

“This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.”

“lET HIM MARCH TO THE MUSIC HE HEARS”

“Keep pace with the drummer you hear, however measured or far away.”

“What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers?”

“Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.”

“Being is the great explainer.”

“There is no life but this.”

“The silence rings—it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible—I hear the unspeakable.”

“Now-a-days, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty cap.”

“I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians.”

“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.”

“If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.”

“The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature.”

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.”

“I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to the other”

“I am thinking by what long discipline and at what cost a man learns to speak simply at last.”

“But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted.”

“It matters not where or how far you travel,--the farther commonly the worse,--but how much alive you are.”

“I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead.”

“The attitude of resistance is one of weakness inasmuch as it only faces an enemy. It has its back to all that is truly attractive.”

“What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.”

“If I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame.”

“AN ARTIST IS FIRST AN AMATEUR”

“I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them.”

“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”

“For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak, But only thinks and does; Though surely out 'twill leak Without the help of Greek, Or any tongue.”

“You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.”

“Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

“Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons.”

“Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?”

“No very black melencholy can come to he who lives in the midst of nature and has his senses still.....”

“Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.”

“In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference.”

“I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, anymore than I would have every acre of earth cultivated.”

“on the morning of many a first spring day...the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead. There needs no stronger proof of immortality.”

“For I believe that climate does thus react on man--as there is something in the mountain air that feeds the spirit and inspires.”

“If we would aim at perfection in any thing, simplicity must not be overlooked.”

“The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in the Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

“Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead.”

“There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon"—said Damodara, when his herds required new and larger pastures.”

“I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear.”

“The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men ; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity.”

“He understood, as he would write in "Walking," that "the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.”

“The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read the.”

“How can he remember well his ignorance—which his growth requires—who has so often to use his knowledge?”

“Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”

“When the subject has refused allegiance and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.”