"A grain of gold will gild a..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”

“No doubt Carlyle has a propensity to exaggerate the heroic in history, that is, he creates you an ideal hero rather than another thing.... Yet what were history if he did not exaggerate it? How comes it that history never has to wait for facts, but for a man to write it? The ages may go on forgetting the facts never so long, he can remember two for every one forgotten. The musty records of history, like the catacombs, contain the perishable remains, but only in the breast of genius are embalmed the souls of heroes.”

“Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!”

“Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.”

“The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly.”

“The way of the superior person is threefold; virtuous, they are free from anxieties; wise they are free from perplexities; and bold they are free from fear.”

“The truly great ones rely on substance, and not on surface, hold on to the fruit, and not to the flower.”

“The cheaper books become, the less money is spent on books.”

“We must not discriminate between things. Where things are concerned there are no class distinctions. We must pick out what is good for us where we can find it.”