Henry David Thoreau Quotes

It is after we get home that we really go over the mountain, if ever.

That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

Steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of one's style, both of speaking and writing.

Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for another.

A man may travel fast enough and earn his living on the road.

Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.

Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world?

What a glorious time they must have in that wilderness, far from mankind and election day!

Politics is but a narrow field.

It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do.

I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society.

It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.

There is no treatment for adore, but to love far more.

A man's wealth is measured by what he doesn't need.

When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.

I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not truly lived.

Endeavor to live the life you have imagined.

There are various tough problems yet to solve, and we must shift to live, betwixt spirit and matter, such a human life as we can.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmie that he can? Let everyone mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made

You must converse much with the field and the woods if you would imbibe such health into your mind and spirit as you covet for your body

You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.

As long as I have the friendship of the sesasons life will never be a burden to me.

We saw men haying far off in the meadow, their heads waving like the grass which they cut. In the distance the wind seemed to bend all alike.

My friend is one... who take me for what I am.

The authority of government . . . can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.

Nature is fair in proportion as the youth is pure. The heavens and the earth are one flower ; the earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla.

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow.

Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye.

So near along life's stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin; and the voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these uncontaminated sources.

Having reached the term of his natural life"; Mwould it not be truer to say, Having reached the term of his unnatural life?

Inexpressibly beautiful appears the recognition by man of the least natural fact, and the allying his life to it.

The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the "means" are increased.

Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting.... We have not got half-way to dawn yet.

I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is.

There is a chasm between knowledge and ignorance which the arches of science can never span.

What avails it that another loves you, if he does not understand you? Such love is a curse.

A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.

If you indulge in long periods, you must be sure to have a snapper at the end.

We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.

Alas! the culture of an Irishman is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe.

Art may varnish and gild, but it can do no more.

But the eyes, though they are no sailors, will never be satisfied with any model, however fashionable, which does not answer all the requisitions of art.

As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this country.

A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of nature by being buried in it.

For the most part, the best man's spirit makes a fearful sprite to haunt his grave.

Good religious men, with the love of men in their hearts, and the means to pay their toll in their pockets.

Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.

The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of hate.

Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster, both intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very late, he honestly slumbered a fool's allowance.