...almost always cheer me up, particularly when I'm in a work-related funk. In my corporate days I picked up the nerdy but rewarding habit of typing good quotes from things I was reading into Microsoft Word files so I could easily find the quotes later. My Thoreau file is filled with dozens of amazing passages, so to help me decide which to post in this blog entry, I focused on some of the best of his quick-hitters. When they're looking for words to live by, a lot of people seem to reach for the Bible, but to me, Thoreau's stuff just makes so much more sense...on money:
"Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul."
on success:
"...a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."
on economic equality:
"The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another."
on smarts:
"Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit."
on fashion:
"The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same."
on change:
"Things do not change; we change."
on life:
"This is the only way [to live], we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one center."
on the future's potential:
"Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning-star."
