Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an American writer and philosopher, known for Walden, an account of two years spent in a cabin by a pond in Massachusetts. His essay Civil Disobedience, written after he refused to pay a tax in protest against slavery and war, later influenced Gandhi and King.
About this theme: Dreams
The word dreams carries two meanings here that are rarely separated: what we dream at night and what we aim at. Older cultures did not draw a firm line between them — dreams were read as messages and aspirations as a summons. Only more recent usage splits the two, and gives nearly all the weight to the second.
More by Henry David Thoreau
- Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
- The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit.
- An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
More on Dreams
- In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm; in the real world all rests on perseverance.— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.— Mark Twain
- The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.— Friedrich Nietzsche
- Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.— Theodore Roosevelt
- The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result; his duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.— Nikola Tesla