Walden - Henry David Thoreau

A classic piece of American literature about the experiences of the author living simply for a year. It was published in 1854. Here are 5 quotes. You may notice I have already quoted it in the Vagabonding entry.

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.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

To be awake is to be alive.

In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.


...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. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.