Henry David Thoreau

Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

I am a parcel of vain strivings tiedBy a chance bond together,Dangling this way and that, their linksWere made so loose and wide,Methinks,For milder weather.

The life that I aspire to liveNo man proposeth me—No trade upon the streetWears its emblazonry.

But now I see I was not plucked for naught,And after in life's vaseOf glass set while I might survive,But by a kind hand broughtAliveTo a strange place.

The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelfThan that I may not disappoint myself,That in my action I may soar as highAs I can now discern with this clear eye.

Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough,What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town,If juster battles are enacted nowBetween the ants upon this hummock's crown?

My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read,'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at largeDown in the meadow, where is richer feed,And will not mind to hit their proper targe.

When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?