A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

A man thinking or working will always be alone, let him be where he will.

— Henry David Thoreau

Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.

— Henry David Thoreau

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

— Henry David Thoreau

Any fool can make a rule And any fool will mind it.

— Henry David Thoreau

A perfect book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning’s flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself--and not a taper lighted at the hearthstone of the race, which pales before the light of common day.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau