Henry David Thoreau

However mean your life is meet it and live it do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in Paradise. Love your life.

Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions but religiously follows the new.

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.

Friends will not only live in harmony but in melody.

We must have infinite faith in each other.

Experience is in the fingers and the head. The heart is inexperienced.

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

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

Water is the only drink for a wise man.

It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than to be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Where there is a brave man in the thickest of the fight there is the post of honor.

However mean your life is meet it and live it do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are.

Compliments and flattery oftenest excite my contempt by the pretension they imply for who is he that assumes to flatter me? To compliment often implies an assumption of superiority in the complimenter. It is in fact a subtle detraction.

Things do not change we change.

What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter.