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.
Henry David Thoreau - Confidence - Dreams - Success - Life - Inspirational

One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense.
Henry David Thoreau - Mistakes - Regret - Forgiveness

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau - Life - Writing - Vain

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Henry David Thoreau - Rich - Cheap

I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.
Henry David Thoreau - Life - Hard Work - Love - Career - Time - Poetry

To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
Henry David Thoreau - Government - Respect - Criticism - Improvement

The Indian stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison.
Henry David Thoreau - Nature - Indigenous - Society

No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know.
Henry David Thoreau - Poetry - Wisdom - Criticism

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? 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 which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau - Success - Competition