“You must converse much with the field and the woods if you would imbibe such health into your mind and spirit as you covet for your body”

“Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.”

“This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.”

“We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return; prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only, as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again; if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk.”

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”

“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.”

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”