"We need only travel enough to give..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such.”

“Nature has many scenes to exhibit, and constantly draws a curtain over this part or that. She is constantly repainting the landscape and all surfaces, dressing up some scene for our entertainment. Lately we had a leafy wilderness; now bare twigs begin to prevail, and soon she will surprise us with a mantle of snow. Some green she thinks so good for our eyes that, like blue, she never banishes it entirely from our eyes, but has created evergreens.”

“We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defenses only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.”

“At noon I observed a bevy of nude young native women bathing in the sea, and I went and sat down on their clothes to keep them from being stolen.”

“Travelling is like a novel: it's what happens that counts.”

“The traveler must be born again on the road, and earn a passport from the elements.”

“It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel.”

“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.”

“The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.”