I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is stil… - Henry David Thoreau

The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains.

The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels.

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

It would be worth the while to look closely into the eye which has been open and seeing at such hours, and in such solitudes, its dull, yellowish, greenish eye. Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green.

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