12th July: Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian, who was

born 200 years ago on 12 July 1817.

1. It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
2. An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
3. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
4. You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
5. What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
9. It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
10. Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.