Walden

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, cattle, barns, and farming tools, for these are more easily acquired than gotten rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labour in.

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

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it but as I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.

Petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality.

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.