"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. Live a purer, a more thoughtful and laborious life, more true to your friends and neighbors, more noble and magnanimous." (from his journal, 1852)
- "Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state." (from "Walden; or Life in the Woods", 1854)
- "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes." (from "Walden; or Life in the Woods", 1854)
- "Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. ... Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind." (from "Walden; or Life in the Woods", 1854)
- "Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones." (from "Walden; or Life in the Woods", 1854)
- "I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. ... I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will." (from "Walden; or Life in the Woods", 1854)
- "I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher or, if it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both." (from "Walden; or Life in the Woods", 1854)
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