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» Quotes by Henry David Thoreau »
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book...
A kitten is so flexible that she is almost double; the hind parts are ...
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to l...
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the m...
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay i...
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the l...
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man...
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
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 th...
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreo...
As if we could kill time without injuring eternity!
Time
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; s...
Be not simply good - be good for something.
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
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...
Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim a...
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it fo...
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or fri...
Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where...
Dreams are the touchstones of our character
Dreams
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees...
Nature
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously t...
Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not...
For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are th...
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one anot...
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have...
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Nature
How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the exper...
How does it become a man to behave towards the American government tod...
How earthy old people become - moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks...
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a b...
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live...
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and cal...
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective critici...
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the ma...
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to ke...
Nature
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning...
I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of h...
I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. ...
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of ...
I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companiona...
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was...
Nature
I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I w...
I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rath...
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry,...
Business
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front on...
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be cro...
If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because...
If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hear...
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is i...
Nature
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the c...
If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for...
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeav...
Dreams
If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you ...
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in ev...
If you give money, spend yourself with it.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that...
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will bel...
In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misundersta...
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had be...
It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both ...
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative ...
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...
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What ar...
It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.
It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the h...
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.
Imagination
Law never made men a whit more just.
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and...
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not ...
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
Men have become the tools of their tools.
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the ...
Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are no...
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflak...
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye...
Nature
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Age
Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best ...
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a dista...
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which aff...
Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocen...
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rat...
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attentio...
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular p...
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Dreams
Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the t...
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk wi...
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them a...
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves a...
Nature
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two ...
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
Nature
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his ha...
The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of t...
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
Nature
The Brahmins say that in their books there are many predictions of tim...
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is re...
The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the ...
The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gen...
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me wh...
The heart is forever inexperienced.
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
Friendship
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day daw...
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with anothe...
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Life
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
Friendship
The perception of beauty is a moral test.
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Life
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, o...
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is str...
There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part...
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspici...
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and ...
Things do not change; we change.
Change
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our ne...
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Time
To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who ed...
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble...
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a ...
Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American go...
We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical ...
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap ...
We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.
We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free,...
Education
What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.
What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God...
What is once well done is done forever.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to pu...
Society
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compare...
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old ...
What you get by achieving your goals is to as important as what you be...
What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet t...
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. ...
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such despe...
You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds...
Nature