Bree > Bree's Quotes

“I love you. Most ardently.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy.

"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is
strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I
am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“All good things are wild and free.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“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 or far away.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”
― Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”
― Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

“Things do not change; we change.”
― henry david thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”
― Henry David Thoreau, I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?”
― Henry David Thoreau, Familiar letters

“I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. ”
― Henry David Thoreau

“It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth—certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

“Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking