Henry David Thoreau Quote

We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. By Henry D. Thoreau (ed. 1862)