Henry David Thoreau Quotes

For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost...Not 'til we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.

A Friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us.

The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree's, so copious and so delicious to both sight and scent.

No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life.

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.

Fire is the most tolerable third party

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you'll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you'll be in as much trouble as I am!

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

The lover wants no partiality. He says, Be so kind as to be just.

Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.

In all perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his betrothed virgin.

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

They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.

Man wanted a home, a place for warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don't get enough for this year, I shall cry all the next.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.

Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.

He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

Every blade in the field - Every leaf in the forest - lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up.

Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.

It often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog than to any human being.

Improve every opportunity to be melancholy.

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.

In the long run, we only hit what we aim at.

While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?

The opening of large tracts by the ice-cutters commonly causes a pond to break up earlier; for the water, agitated by the wind, even in cold weather, wears away the surrounding ice.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moonnor firefly has shown me the causeway to it.

Lose the world, get lost in it, and find your soul.

All change is a miracle to contemplate, but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping.

A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love, and know no otherlaw nor kindness.

All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an inhabitant of the land and all its products have a certain fabulous quality, as if they belonged to another planet.

If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life.

I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie on the earth.

The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

The Heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high.

In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.