If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavours to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

More from Henry David Thoreau

• Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
• A man receives only what he is ready to receive... The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest of what he has observed, he does not observe.
• Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
• Any fool can make a rule And every fool will mind it.
• Any fool can make a rule And every fool will mind it. Journals, entry for Feb. 3, 1860
• Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.