Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.

A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.

All great enterprises are self-supporting.

It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off from their present pursuit.

The monument of death will outlast the memory of the dead. The Pyramids do not tell the tale which was confided to them; the living fact commemorates itself.

There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear.

Nothing can shock a brave man but dullness.

There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of "expediency." There is no such thing as sliding up- hill.In morals the only sliders are backsliders.

There is no ill which may not be dissipated, like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it.

In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.

If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few marriages such as we witness would ever have taken place!

The higher the mountain on which you stand, the less change in the prospect from year to year, from age to age. Above a certain height there is no change.

Be wary of technology; it is often merely an improved means to an unimproved end.

Tough times don't last but tough people do. No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch. Men are born to succeed, not fail.

Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, which in others are luxuries merely and in others still are entirely unknown.

Why should not a poet's cat be winged as well as his horse?

A fact may blossom into a truth.

Most, it would seem to me, do not care for nature and would sell their share.

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be.

If you're familiar with a principle you don't have to be familiar with all of its applications.

Go confidently ... Live the life that you imagined.

Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of.

The book has never been written which is to be accepted without any allowance.

In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind.

Heaven is not one of your fertile Ohio bottoms, you may depend on it.

A stranger may easily detect what is strange to the oldest inhabitant, for the strange is his province.

I have not the most definite designs on the future.

I would stand upon facts.

I delight to come to my bearings,... not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sitthoughtfully while it goes by.

God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator.

I did not know that mankind was suffering for want of gold.

Men are as innocent as the morning to the unsuspicious.

No people ever lived by cursing their fathers, however great a curse their fathers might have been to them.

It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery.

It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you and I.

There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil. The manners are sometimes so rough a rind that we doubt whether they cover any core or sap-wood at all.

All nations love the same jests and tales, Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, and the same translated suffice for all.

Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

Most people dread finding out when they come to die that they have never really lived.

What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love.

As a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up.

When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, [I] submit myself to my instinct to decide for me.

Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are NOT good?

What is commonly called friendship is only a little more honor among rogues.

It is very rare that you meet with obstacles in this world, which the humblest man has not faculties to surmount.

The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.

Men talk of freedom! How many are free to think? Free from fear, from perturbation, from prejudice? Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand are perfect slaves.

The mass of men are very easily imposed on. They have their runways in which they always travel, and are sure to fall into any pit or box-trap set therein.

The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.