• There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • Let’s be honest. Christian perspectives are also about social ethics; they’re about the same.

    —Archbishop Angaelos

  • 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. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer?

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • 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.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. 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 still quite distinct.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • It is neither the quality nor the quantity, but the devotion to sensual savors; when that which is eaten is not a viand to sustain our animal, or inspire our spiritual life, but food for the worms that possess us.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • A puritan may go to his brown-bread crust with as gross an appetite as ever an alderman to his turtle. Not that food which entereth into the mouth defileth a man, but the appetite with which it is eaten.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau

  • He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau