My aims and my means

 

I am often reminded that if I had bestowed on me the wealth of Croesus, my aims must still be the same and my means essentially the same.

Henry Thoreau, in his Journal on 29th January 1852.

A gap in the paling ...

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. Wherever a man separates from the multitude and goes his own way, there is a fork in the road, though the travellers along the highway see only a gap in the paling.

From Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837-1861, edited by Damion Searls (New York, 2009), entry for Oct. 18. 1855.

A whole new field ...

Thoughts accidentally thrown together become a frame in which more may be developed and exhibited. Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing, of keeping a journal, - that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves. My thoughts are my company. They have a certain individuality and separate existence, aye, personality. Having by chance recorded a few disconnected thoughts and then brought them into juxtaposition, they suggest a whole new field in which it was possible to labour and to think. Thought begat thought.

From Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837-1861, edited by Damion Searles (New York, 2009), entry for Jan. 22. 1852.