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Henry David Thoreau was a man who lived by example first. If he believed a law was wrong than he would rather be in jail than support an unjust law. He is one of America’s greatest writers, and his thoughts on the freedom of personal responsibility, political life, leading by example, and nature have been a strong influence on me. Please enjoy.

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see.”

“Men are born to succeed, not to fail.”

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

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it.”

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

“There is no remedy for love, but to love more.”

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”

“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.”

“…be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.”

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

“One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.”

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

“Not till we are completely lost or turned around… do we begin to find ourselves.”

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.”

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

“In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.”

“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.”

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

“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”

“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.”

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

“It is never too late to give up your prejudices”

“I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.”

“Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.”

“But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

“Things do not change, we change.”

“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”

“We should impart our courage and not our despair.”

“A Friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us.”

“It’s not worth our while to let our imperfections disturb us always.”