Henry David Thoreau Quotes

There is not so good an understanding between any two, but the exposure by the one of a serious fault in the other will produce a misunderstanding in proportion to its heinousness.

Our science, so called, is always more barren and mixed with error than our sympathies.

There are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or inlet, yet unexplored by him.

I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible; I would have each one be very careful to find out and preserve his own way.

Surely one may as profitably be soaked in the juices of a swamp for one day as pick his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and damp ? are they not as rich experience as warmth and dryness?

I think that no experience which I have today comes up to, or is comparable with, the experiences of my boyhood.

A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful-while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly.

I am amused to see from my window here how busily a man has divided and staked off his domain. God must smile at his puny fences running hither and thither everywhere over the land.

Wherever you may seek solitude, men will ferret you out and compel you to belong to their desperate company of oddfellows.

Two or three hours' walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey.

Of what use the friendliest disposition even, if there are no hours given to Friendship, if it is forever postponed to unimportant duties and relations? Friendship first, Friendship last.

Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was exhausted.

Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.

We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes.

Far from New England's blustering shore,New England's worm her hulk shall bore,And sink her in the Indian seas,Twine, wine, and hides, and China teas.

Men reverence one another, not yet God.

Every poet has trembled on the verge of science.

Men spend the best parts of their lives earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.

Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East -- to know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them -- who were above such trifling.

The traveler must be born again on the road, and earn a passport from the elements.

Who hears the fishes when they cry?

Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.

A man's whole life is taxed for the least thing well done. It is its net result.

The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.

Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.

The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.

You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else.

When I would go a-visiting, I find that I go off the fashionable street,--not being inclined to change my dress,--to where man meets man, and not polished shoe meets shoe.

We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.

It is not when I am going to meet him, but when I am just turning away and leaving him alone, that I discover what God is. I say, God. I am not sure that that is the name. You will know what I mean.

Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.

Wealth cannot purchase any great private solace or convenience. Riches are only the means of sociality.

Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.

We fritter away our energy and creativity . . . we get bogged down in the thick of thin things.

And so the seasons went rolling on into summer, as one rambles into higher and higher grass.

The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.

Seeds, there are seeds enough which need only be stirred in with the soil where they lie, by an inspired voice or pen, to bear fruit of a divine flavor.

Everything that is printed and bound in a book contains some echo at least of the best that is in literature.

What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is.

A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can appreciate.

Every man should stand for a force which is perfectly irresistible.

Some, it seems to me, elect their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick makes the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler.

What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator.

Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.

Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.

I see less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly.

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill.

A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.

Winter is the time for study, you know, and the colder it is the more studious we are.

You may tell by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not.