Henry David Thoreau — "We are wont to imagine that it would be a pleasant pastime to be a potato and gr…"

"I perceive that, when an old man has done what he has to do, and has said what he has to say, he is as ready to go as an old clock to strike."

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I ha…"

"To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?"

"All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character …"

"I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes."