"If we live in the Nineteenth Century,..." - Quote by Henry David Thoreau

“Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.”

“Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.”

“Cowards suffer, heroes enjoy.”

“I think we are warranted in contending that a society thus constituted, and which may be rendered so admirable an engine of improvement, far from meriting reproach, deserves highly of the community.”

“Whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the Man-People, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe of the dawn.”

“Without electricity, the air would rot.”

“He who marries the spirit of the age soon becomes a widower.”

“Everyone nowadays lives through too much and thinks through too little: they have a ravenous appetite and colic at the same time so that they keep getting thinner and thinner no matter how much they eat.--Whoever says nowadays, "I have not experienced anything"--is a simpleton.”

“Now there's a grown-up swinging town.”