Henry David Thoreau

All that man can say or do that can possibly concern mankind is, in some shape or other, to tell the story of his love - to sing, and if he is fortunate and keeps alive he will be forever in love. This alone is to be alive to the extremities. It is such a pity that this divine creature should ever suffer from cold feet. A still greater pity that the coldness so often reaches to his heart.

Człowiek podróżujący samotnie, może wyruszyć dziś; lecz ten, który podróżuje w towarzystwie musi czekać dopóki inni są gotowi.

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

Ten cytat ma więcej niż dwa języki

Poszedłem do lasu, ponieważ chciałem żyć z rozmysłem, aby poznać tylko podstawowe fakty z życia i zobaczyć, czy nie mogłem się nauczyć, czego miał nauczać, a kiedy przyszło mi umrzeć, odkryłem, że nie żyłem.

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.

我步入叢林，因為我希望生活得有意義。
我希望活得深刻，汲取生命中所有的精華，
把非生命的一切都擊潰，否則，當我死去的時候，
我會發現自己從來沒有活過。

Our life is frittered away by detail.

It is not enough to be busy . . . the question is: what are we busy about?

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

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.

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

In wildness is the preservation of the world.

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

That government is best which governs least.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

The world is but a canvas to the imagination.

Uważaj na technologię. To często zaledwie udoskonalone środki dla nieudoskonalonych celów.

Be wary of technology; it is often merely an improved means to an unimproved end.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

To reget deeply is to live afresh.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

Government never furthered any enterprise but the alacrity with which it got out of the way.

What a man thinks of himself that is what determines, or rather indicates his fate.

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

Prawda dla prawnika to nie Prawda, ale spójność, albo konsekwentna użyteczność.

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

Pod rządem, który wtrąca do więzień bez sprawiedliwości, właściwe miejsce dla sprawiedliwego to także więzienie.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward.

Any fool can make a rule and every foo

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

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

Nie znam nic bardziej mobilizującego niż niekwestionowana zdolność człowieka do ulepszania swojego życia poprzez świadome starania.

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

Większość ludzi żyje życiem cichej desperacji i idzie do grobów z pieśnią ciągle w sobie.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which these things would be by me unavoidable.

I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

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

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly...I think-- Any fool can make a rule And every fool will mind it.

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitiches today to save nine tomorrow.

We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be. -- from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers 56.One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then.

Ten cytat ma więcej niż dwa języki

Nie przejmuj się, gdy zarzucą Ci, że budujesz zamki w powietrzu. To jest właśnie miejsce, w którym powinno się je stawiać. Potem wystarczy, że dobudujesz im fundamenty.

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.

如果已築成空中閣樓，你的成果不需捨棄，就讓它適得其所。現在，放些基石於其之下。

Do not despair of life. Think of the fox, prowling in a winter night to satisfy his hunger. His race survives; I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide.

What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.

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

No one is so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live.

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.

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.

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

Things do not change: we change.

It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning around.

Every individual is equal and has the same fundamental human rights as others in a relationship, regardless of roles and titles. Robert E. Alberti, Michael L. Emmons in Your Perfect Right It takes two to speak truth---one to speak and another to hear.

There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one hacking at the root.

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

Ten cytat ma więcej niż dwa języki

Potrzeba dwóch do mówienia prawdy - jeden mówi a drugi słucha.

It takes two to speak truth - one to speak and another to hear.

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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 he hears however measured and far away.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

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.

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.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.

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

It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient can be trusted without proof. What every body echos or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do you try and find out you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive ... We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

Problem solving and creativity Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.

In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness.

In wildness is the preservation of the World.

The birds I heard today, which, fortunately, did not come within the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it had been the first morning of creation.

The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them.

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.

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

Chcę żyć pełnią życia, chcę wyssać wszystkie soki życia. (...) By nie odkryć tuż przed śmiercią, że nie umiałem żyć.

Życie miejskie: miliony ludzi, których dzieli wspólna samotność.

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it.

It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair's breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance ... To perceive freshly, with fresh senses is to be inspired.

Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find a thousand regions in your mind yet undiscovered. Travel them and be expert in home-cosmography.

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.

Consider what is truly respectable, not what is respected.

Jako pojedynczy krok nie będzie ścieżki na ziemi, więc pojedyncza myśl nie wyżłobi ścieżki w umyśle. Aby zrobić głęboką fizyczną ścieżkę, chodzimy raz za razem. Aby wytyczyć głęboką ścieżkę mentalną, musimy zastanowić się nad tym, jakie myśli chcemy dominować w naszym życiu.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

To nie to, na co patrzysz, ma znaczenie, ale to, co widzisz.

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

A gun gives you the body, not the bird.

Men are probably nearer the central truth in their superstitions than in their science.

Tam pracowaliśmy, przeglądając mitologię, zaokrąglając bajkę tu i tam, i budując zamki w powietrzu, dla których ziemia nie dała żadnego godnego fundamentu.

There we worked, revising mythology, rounding a fable here and there, and building castles in the air for which earth offered no worthy foundation.