"Eastward I go only by force; but..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“There never is but one opportunity of a kind.”

“See yonder thin column of smoke curling up through the woods from some invisible farmhouse, the standard raised over some rural homestead.... It is a hieroglyphic of man's life, and suggests more intimate and important things than the boiling of a pot. Where its fine column rises above the forest, like an ensign, some human life has planted itself,--and such is the beginning of Rome, the establishment of the arts, and the foundation of empires, whether on the prairies of America or the steppes of Asia.”

“Fame itself is but an epitaph; as late, as false, as true.”

“The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.”

“[There is] a duty in refusing to cooperate in any undertaking that violates the Constitutional rights of the individual. This holds in particular for all inquisitions that are concerned with the private life and the political affiliations of the citizens.”

“He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.”

“A man sits as many risks as he runs.”

“You were not born a winner, and you were not born a loser. You are what you make yourself be.”

“Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course.”