GrailQuest - the Search for Goodness, Beauty, Truth & Courage

Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862
American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my answer.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

If one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

Even the death of friends will inspire us as much as their lives. . . . Their memories will be encrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our friends have no place in the graveyard.