Famous Quotes & Sayings

Herb Brooks

Success is won by those who believe in winning & then prepare for that moment. Many want to win, but how many prepare? That is the big difference. A sound value system held water then, holds water today, and will hold water in the future.

Herb Kelleher

Think small and act small, and we'll get bigger. Think big and act big, and we'll get smaller.

Henry David Thoreau

Look not to legislatures and churches for your guidance, nor to any soulless incorporated bodies, but to inspirited or inspired ones.

Henry David Thoreau

It is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminatedmoments are.

Henry David Thoreau

But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines, but fragile flowers, like the orchises, commonly described as too delicate for cultivation, which derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of peat. These remind us, that, not only for strength, but for beauty, the poet must, from time to time, travel the logger's path and the Indian's trail, to drink at some new and more bracing fountain of the Muses, far in the recesses of the wilderness.

Henry David Thoreau

The poet's, commonly, is not a logger's path, but a woodman's. The logger and pioneer have preceded him, like John the Baptist; eaten the wild honey, it may be, but the locusts also; banished decaying wood and the spongy mosses which feed on it, and built hearths and humanized Nature for him.

Henry David Thoreau

The murmurs of many a famous river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, as to more distant dwellers on its banks;many a poet's stream, floating the helms and shields of heroes on its bosom.

Henry David Thoreau

The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered.

Henry David Thoreau

Seeds, there are seeds enough which need only be stirred in with the soil where they lie, by an inspired voice or pen, to bear fruit of a divine flavor.

Henry David Thoreau

A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.

Henry David Thoreau

If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the barroom and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed.

Henry David Thoreau

The word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which the speaker could have better done. Nay, almost it must have taken the place of a deed by some urgent necessity, even by some misfortune, so that the truest writer will be some captive knight, after all. And perhaps the fates had such a design, when, having stored Raleigh so richly with the substance of life and experience, they made him a fast prisoner, and compelled him to make his words his deeds, and transfer to his expression the emphasis and sincerity of his action.

Henry David Thoreau

Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.

Henry David Thoreau

In my cheapest moments I am apt to think that it is n't my business to be "seeking the spirit," but as much its business to be seeking me.

Henry David Thoreau

The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence.

Henry David Thoreau

Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue caught from a vaster receding thought.

Henry David Thoreau

The devil finds work for idle hands.

Henry David Thoreau

We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.

Henry David Thoreau

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. . . . In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Henry David Thoreau

If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.

Henry David Thoreau

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature -if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you -know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.

Henry David Thoreau

Man emulates earth Earth emulates heaven Heaven emulates the Way The way emulates nature.

Henry David Thoreau

Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.

Henry David Thoreau

So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.

Henry David Thoreau

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.

Henry David Thoreau

For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once done well is done forever.

Henry David Thoreau

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

Henry David Thoreau

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

H. L. Hunt

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.

H. L. Mencken

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

H. L. Mencken

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

H. L. Mencken

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.