Some thoughts of Thoreau

 *To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some  of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

* Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as it were, redeemed. When the desire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly elevated, and so far better already.

* To affect the quality of the day , that is the highest of arts.

* I confess that practically speaking , when I have learned a man’s real disposition, I have no hopes of changing it for the better or worse in this state of existence.

* To him who contemplates a trait of natural beauty no harm nor disappointment can come.

* Beauty is where it is perceived.

* The beauty of the earth answers exactly to your demand and appreciation.

* All the world reposes in beauty to him who preserves equipoise in his life, and moves serenely on his path without secret violence; as he who sails down a stream, he has only to steer, keeping his bark in the middle, and carry it rounnd the falls.

* You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind.

* How much of beauty— of colour, as well as form—- on which our eyes daily rest goes unperceived by us!

* The ears were made, not for such trivial uses as men are wont to suppose, but to hear celestial sounds. The eyes were not made for such grovelling uses as they are now put to and worn out by, but to behold beauty now invisible. May we not see God?

* Who knows what sort of life would result if we had attained to purity?

* I wish so to live ever as to derive my satisfaction and inspirations from the commonest events, every-day phenomena, so that what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me.

* What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the longest practice, and at length it falls from us without our notice, as a leaf from a tree.

*The poet says the proper study of mankind is man. I say study to forget all that— take wider views of the universe.

* All good things are cheap— all bad are very dear.

* There is no ill which may not be dissipated like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it. Overcome evil with good.

* Go not so far out of your way for a truer life— keep strictly onward in that path alone which your genius points out. Do the things which lie nearest to you but which are difficult to do.

* There has been no man of pure Genius; as there has been none wholly destitute of Genius.

* If I ever did a man any good in their sense , of course it was something exceptional, and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am constantly doing by being what I am.

* Men invite the devil in at every angle and then prate about the garden of Eden and the fall of man.

* Every one has a devil in him that is capable of any crime in the long run.

* Sickness should not be allowed to extend further than the body. We need only to retreat further within us, to preserve uninterrupted the continuity of serene hours to the end of our lives.

* The world is a cow that is hard to milk— life doesn’t come so easy,— and ah, how thinly it is watered ere we get it! But the young bunting calf, he will get at it. There is no way so direct.