Thoreau + Hermans

photos: Sarah Hermans
quotes: Henry David Thoreau

“Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.”

“If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.”

"Be not simply good; be good for something."

“In wilderness is the preservation of the world.”

"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."

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.”

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”

"The heart is forever inexperienced."

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I have not lived.”

“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”

"Simplify, simplify."

“The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched.”

"Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live."

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”

“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”

“Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame.”

“It is the marriage of the soul with Nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination.”

“True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.”

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

"Never look back unless you are planning to go that way."

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character."

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

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

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”

“City life is millions of people being lonesome together.”

"The universe is wider than our views of it."

"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I begin by reading, I must finish by acting."

“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”

"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in every moment."

“Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”

"In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood."

“I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

"All good things are wild, and free."

"The world is but a canvas to our imaginations."