It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

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.

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

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

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.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

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.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

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

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

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

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

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

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

Things do not change; we change.

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

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

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

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

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

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

Live the life you've dreamed.

Be not simply good - be good for something.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.

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

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

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

Truths and roses have thorns about them.

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

Men have become the tools of their tools.