Walden

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all

Why should they be­gin dig­ging their graves as soon as they are born?

I should not talk so much about my­self if there were any­body else whom I knew as well. Un­for­tu­nately, I am con­fined to this theme by the nar­row­ness of my ex­pe­ri­ence.

"To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."

And if the civ­i­lized man’s pur­suits are no wor­thier than the sav­age’s, if he is em­ployed the greater part of his life in ob­tain­ing gross nec­es­saries and com­forts merely, why should he have a bet­ter dwelling than the for­mer?

Con­fu­cius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowl­edge.”

All change is a mir­a­cle to con­tem­plate; but it is a mir­a­cle which is tak­ing place ev­ery in­stant.

It is very ev­i­dent what mean and sneak­ing lives many of you live, for my sight has been whet­ted by ex­pe­ri­ence; al­ways on the lim­its, try­ing to get into busi­ness and try­ing to get out of debt, a very an­cient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, an­other’s brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still liv­ing, and dy­ing, and buried by this other’s brass; al­ways promis­ing to pay, promis­ing to pay, to­mor­row, and dy­ing to­day, in­sol­vent; seek­ing to curry fa­vor, to get cus­tom, by how many modes, only not state-prison of­fenses; ly­ing, flat­ter­ing, vot­ing, con­tract­ing your­selves into a nut­shell of ci­vil­ity or di­lat­ing into an at­mos­phere of thin and va­porous gen­eros­ity, that you may per­suade your neigh­bor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his car­riage, or im­port his gro­ceries for him; mak­ing your­selves sick, that you may lay up some­thing against a sick day, some­thing to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stock­ing be­hind the plas­ter­ing, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no mat­ter where, no mat­ter how much or how lit­tle.

Public opin­ion is a weak tyrant com­pared with our own pri­vate opin­ion. What a man thinks of him­self, that it is which de­ter­mines, or rather in­di­cates, his fate.

trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good ser­vice to him whom it fits.