Henry David Thoreau: The Question Is Not What You Look At But What You See

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

Not all who wander are lost. 

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 had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

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

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

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

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant? 

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. 

The world is but a canvas for our imagination. 

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.   

There is no remedy for love but to love more. 

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us. 

It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see. 

 — Henry David Thoreau