Henry David Thoreau Quotes

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.


A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.


A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.


A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.


After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.


Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.


Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!


All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight to the finish spirit is the one... characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers.


All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.


All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.


An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.


An unclean person is universally a slothful one.


Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.


As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.


As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.


As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.


As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.


As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.


Be not simply good - be good for something.


Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.


Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.


Being is the great explainer.


Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes.


Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.


Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.


Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.


Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?


Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.


Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.


Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.


Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.


Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.


Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.


Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.


Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.


Dreams are the touchstones of our character.


Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.


Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.


Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?


Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.


Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.


Faith never makes a confession.


Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.


Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.


Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.


Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.


God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.


Goodness is the only investment that never fails.


Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.


Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.


How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?


How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?


How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.


How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.


How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.


I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.


I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.


I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.


I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls.


I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.


I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.


I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.


I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.


I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.


I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.


I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.


I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.


I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.


I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.


I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.


I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.


I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.


I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.


I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.


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.


I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.


If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?


If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.


If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music in which he hears, however measured, or far away.


If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.


If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.


If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.


If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?


If misery loves company, misery has company enough.


If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.


If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.


If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.


If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.


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.


If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. There is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.


If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.


Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.


In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.


In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.


In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.


In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.


In wilderness is the preservation of the world.


Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.


Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.


It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.


It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.


It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.


It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.


It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.


It is never too late to give up our prejudices.


It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.


It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?


It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.


It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.


It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.


It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.


It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of to-day.


It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.


It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.


It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.


It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.


Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.


Live the life you've dreamed.


Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.


Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.


Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.


Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.


May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!


Men are born to succeed, not to fail.