Henry David Thoreau Quotes

But you can't focus on things that matter if all you've been is asleep for forty years. Funny how sleep rhymes with sheep. You know.

Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind shut their eyes to plainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute lawgiver; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him by the nose; thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World happen twice, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable.

Where dost thou careless lie, Buried in ease and sloth? Knowledge that sleeps, doth die; And this security, It is the common moth, That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

If you decide to just go with the flow, you'll end up where the flow goes, which is usually downhill, often leading to a big pile of sludge and a life of unhappiness. You'll end up doing what everyone else is doing.

Mediocrity triumphs because it presents itself as democratic and because it is dull, and so for many does not seem worth struggling against.

The worst thing in the world is to be bland.

Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.

Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours.

I may be daft but I'm no' stupid!

Beware the mediocrity that threatens middle age, its limitation of thought and interest, its dullness of fancy, its too external life, and mental thinness.

(J)ust to clarify: If you go into every situation saying there's absolutely nothing worth fighting over, you will inevitably end up on a cot sleeping next to a guy named Tiny, bringing him breakfast in his cell every morning, and spending your afternoons ironing his boxers. Or, in the case of the French, you might spend your afternoon rounding up Jews to send to Germany, but you get the point.

There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.

You didn't understand or care to know, you get your education from your lovers.

While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.

Mediocrity is excellence in the eyes of the mediocre.

Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.

If everybody likes you, you're pretty dull.

The world is so full of simpletons and madmen, that one need not seek them in a madhouse.

Dullness is a kind of luxury.

Most people sleep themselves stupid.

There is a case, and a strong case, for that particular form of indolence that allows us to move through life knowing only what immediately concerns us.

[On U.S. universities:] The bland leading the bland.

The world is full of boring, identical and mindless people.