Quotes About Self-reliance

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown!

Society is commonly too cheap.

I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead.

But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow.

This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

The life which society proposes to me to live is so artificial and complex—bolstered up on many weak supports, and sure to topple down at last—that no man surely can ever be inspired to live it.

out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe--That government is best which governs not at all;

I take all these walks to every point of the compass, and it is always harvest-time with me. I am always gathering my crop from these woods and fields and waters, and no man is in my way or interferes with me. My crop is not their crop. I am not gathering beans and corn. Do they think there are no fruits but such as these?

Thus the state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this;— who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon.

We had been told in Bangor of a man who lived alone, a sort of hermit, at that dam [on the Allegash], to take care of it, who spent his time tossing a bullet from one hand to the other, for want of employment. This sort of tit-for-tat intercourse between his two hands, bandying to and fro a leaden subject, seems to have been his symbol for society.

I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth anyone's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.

I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one, be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead.

VýstrednosÃ…Â¥, premrÅ¡tenosÃ…Â¥ - tá predsa závislý od toho, aká ohrada vás zväzuje.

I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans

Let us not, my friends, be wheedled and cheated into good behavior to earn the salt of our eternal porridge, whoever they are that attempt it. Let us wait a little, and not purchase any clearing here, trusting that richer bottoms will soon be put up. It is but thin soil where we stand; I have felt my roots in a richer ere than this.

the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.

Para resumir, estou convencido, por e fé e experiência, que a automanutenção neste mundo não é um sofrimento mas um passatempo, se a pessoa viver de modo simples e sábio; tanto que as ocupações dos povos mais simples são os esportes dos mais sofisticados. Não é necessário que um homem ganhe a vida com o suor de seu rosto, a não ser que ele sue muito mais que eu

You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs.

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.

On doit vivre en soi, ne dépendre que de soi, et, toujours à pied d'œuvre et prêt à repartir, ne pas s'encombrer de multiples affaires.

guardatevi da tutte le imprese che richiedono abiti nuovi, invece che nuovi «indossatori». Se non c'è l'uomo nuovo, come si potranno fare abiti che gli si adattino? Se dovete intraprendere qualche cosa di nuovo, fatelo nei vostri abiti vecchi.

you must everywhere build on piles of your own driving.