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Henry David Thoreau Quotes
American Transcendentalist author
| “ | How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Walden: Reading, 1854 | ” |
| “ | Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
Walden: Higher Laws, 1854 | ” |
| “ | Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.
Walden: Economy, 1854 | ” |
| “ | 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.
Walden, Conclusion, 1854 | ” |
| “ | The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
Walden, Chapter 1: Economy | ” |
| “ | It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
Walden, 1854 | ” |
| “ | I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
Walden, 1854 | ” |
| “ | Things do not change; we change.
Walden (1970) | ” |
| “ | 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.
Walden (1854) | ” |
| “ | When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
Walden | ” |
| “ | Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.
Walden | ” |
| “ | Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
Walden | ” |
| “ | There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Journal, July 25, 1839 | ” |
| “ | Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
Journal, January 21, 1838 | ” |
| “ | He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.
Journal, February 11, 1840 | ” |
| “ | But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.
Civil Disobedience | ” |
| “ | It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
'Economy,' Walden, 1854 | ” |
| “ | The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
"Walden", 1854 | ” |
| “ | Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
"Walden", 1854 | ” |
| “ | [Water is] the only drink for a wise man.
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| “ | When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.
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| “ | What people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. | ” |
| “ | What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? | ” |
| “ | We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not. | ” |
| “ | Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison. | ” |
| “ | To regret deeply is to live afresh. | ” |
| “ | The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. | ” |
| “ | The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
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| “ | That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. | ” |
| “ | Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth! | ” |
| “ | Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
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| “ | Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. | ” |
| “ | Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
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| “ | Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. | ” |
| “ | Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify. | ” |
| “ | My friend is one... who take me for what I am. | ” |
| “ | Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man's nobler faculties. | ” |
| “ | Men have become the tools of their tools. | ” |
| “ | Men are born to succeed, not fail.
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| “ | Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. | ” |
| “ | It is never too late to give up your prejudices. | ” |
| “ | It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning around. | ” |
| “ | In wildness is the preservation of the world. | ” |
| “ | In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world. | ” |
| “ | If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see. | ” |
| “ | If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see. | ” |
| “ | 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 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. | ” |
| “ | I stand in awe of my body.
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| “ | I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
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| “ | I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
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| “ | However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society. | ” |
| “ | How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
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| “ | Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
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| “ | Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
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| “ | Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
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| “ | Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
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| “ | Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet. | ” |
| “ | Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business. | ” |
| “ | Be true to your work, your word, and your friend. | ” |
| “ | As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. | ” |
| “ | Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. | ” |
| “ | A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. | ” |
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