“I had to philosophize. Otherwise, I could not live in this world.”

“All the lives I could live, all the people I will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is all that the world is.”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

“It was strange, really. A couple months ago, I had thought I couldn’t live without him. Apparently I could.”

“One could say that what differentiates ancient from modern philosophy is the fact that, in ancient philosophy, it was not only Chrysippus or Epicurus who, just because they had developed a philosophical discourse, were considered philosophers. Rather, every person who lived according to the precepts of Chrysippus or Epicurus was every bit as much a philosopher as they.”

“Hell of a world we live in, huh? (…) But it could be worse, huh?"
"That's right," I said, "or even worse, it could be perfect.”

“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.”

“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”

“I had done this all by myself. No one had performed the magic for me. I and the shapes were alone together, revealing themselves in a silently respectful dialogue. Since I could bare lines into living reality, I was all powerful. I could read.”

“A love thought: I love you so much that I could wish I had been born your brother, or had brought you into the world myself.”