If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau · Walden
Courage & motivation
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be…”
- Author
- Henry David Thoreau
- Work
- Walden
- Year
- 1854
- Length
- 26 words
- Source
- Project Gutenberg eBook #205
Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. Henry David Thoreau died in 1862, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1854. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.
Related passages
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
OUT of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul.
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
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