Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.

Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

I have not read far in the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is not profitable reading. They do not always say what is true; and they do not always mean what they say.

I have seen more men than usual, lately; and, well as I was acquainted with one, I am surprised to find what vulgar fellows they are.

I would fain keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness.

The virtue of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before does not begin to be superhuman.

We seem to think that the earth must go through the ordeal of sheep-pasturage before it is habitable by man.

Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.

A fortified town is like a man cased in the heavy armor of antiquity, with a horse-load of broadswords and small arms slung to him, endeavoring to go about his business.

I do not wish, it happens, to be associated with Massachusetts, either in holding slaves or in conquering Mexico. I am a little better than herself in these respects.

When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,--none of the servants.

It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.

That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the United States generally, any more than to Patagonia.

The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks of human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not vomit up.

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

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

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

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact.

Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray.

Heaven might be defined as the place which men avoid.

The culture of the hop ... so analagous to the culture and uses of the grape, may afford a theme for future poets.

A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East.

I have heard of many going astray even in the village streets, when the darkness was so thick you could cut it with a knife, as the saying is...

As for style of writing, if one has anything to say, it drops from him simply and directly, as a stone falls to the ground.

Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you to let you alone.

The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as freely.

What youth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside.

Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for the possessor almost universal respect.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.

Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints.

Enemies publish themselves. They declare war. The friend never declares his love.

Nature is an admirable schoolmistress.

They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy evil, that they may no longer have have it to regret.

Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is, in this sense, a hospital.

I was daily intoxicated, yet no man could call me intemperate.

I derive no pleasure from talking with a young woman simply because she has regular features.

The prosaic man sees things badly, or with the bodily sense; but the poet sees them clad in beauty, with the spiritual sense.

A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for.

One should be always on the trail of one's own deepest nature. For it is the fearless living out of your own essential nature that connects you to the Divine.

The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs.

Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.

In the wilderness is the salvation of the world.

A little thought is sexton to all the world.

To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.

Going from--toward; it is the history of every one of us.

The botanist should make interest with the bees if he would know when the flowers open and when they close.

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers

Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.

Some would find fault with the morning, if they ever got up early enough.. The fault find faults even in Paradise.

If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.