Henry David Thoreau Quotes

There is one thought for the field, another for the house. I would have my thoughts, like wild apples, to be food for walkers, and will not warrant them to be palatable if tasted in the house.

Every sunset I witness inspires me with the desire to go to West as distant and as fair as that which the sun goes down. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.

For in the wood these golden days Some leaf obeys its Maker's call. And through their hollow aisles it plays With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.

If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care.

Wealth is measured by the level of experience in all aspects of life

Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a different season.

I have great faith in a seed.

It is the stars as not yet known to science that I would know, the stars which the lonely traveler knows.

Beware of any profession for which you must buy new clothes.

Love is no individual's experience; and though we are imperfect mediums, it does not partake of our imperfection; though we are finite, it is infinite and eternal.

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand. I love a broad margin to my life.

I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse.

You must ascend a mountain to learn your relation to matter, and so to your own body, for it is at home there, though you are not.

What is man but a mass of thawing clay?

Who knows what the human body would expand and flow out to under a more genial heaven?

In the planting of the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no more than follow Nature, though they may not know it.

I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still see men in herds for all them.

In civilization, as in a southern latitude, man degenerates at length, and yields to the incursion of more northern tribes.

The Great Snow! How cheerful it is to hear of!

The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.

Morning brings back the heroic ages.

Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a transcendentalist; and for my part I am more interested in the men than in the cattle.

Everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use.

The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers.

He who receives an injury is to some extent an accomplice of the wrong-doer.

The country is an archipelago of lakes,--the lake-country of New England.

So far as inland discovery was concerned, the adventurous spirit of the English was that of sailors who land but for a day, and their enterprise the enterprise of traders.

Are not all finite beings better pleased with motions relative than absolute?

The newest is but the oldest made visible to our senses.

Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds?

Invariably our best nights were those when it rained.

Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.

A man has not seen a thing who has not felt it.

The improved means to the unimproved end.

Still we live meanly like ants, though the fable tells us we were long ago changed into men.

The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.

As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.

The savage lives simply through ignorance and idleness or laziness, but the philosopher lives simply through wisdom.

The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

How can he remember well his ignorance - which his growth requires - who has so often to use his knowledge?

How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health!

It is not enough to be a hardworking person. Equally important is the job you are working at.

We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.

Where there is a lull in truth an institution springs up.

It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.

I do not know but thoughts written down thus in a journal might be printed in the same form with greater advantage than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays.

By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.

As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life.