Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

"That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest."

"Our life is frittered away by detail.… Simplify, simplify."

"Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it."

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us."

"The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

"An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."

"Men have become the tools of their tools."

"There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold."

"Live the life you've dreamed."

"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living."

"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run."

"Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."

"Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify."

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."

"Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it."

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."

"There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself."

"Being is the great explainer."

"Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something."

"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting."

"A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend."

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life."

"It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil."

"Wisdom principle 98 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 30."

"Wisdom principle 88 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 24."

"Wisdom principle 73 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 15."

"Wisdom principle 68 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 12."

"Wisdom principle 58 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 6."

"Wisdom principle 53 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 3."

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new."

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."

"All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man."

"It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

"The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth."

"It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear."

"Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without."

"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

"Be not simply good - be good for something."

"Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something."

"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm."

"Wisdom principle 78 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 18."

"Wisdom principle 42 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 97."

"Wisdom principle 32 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 91."

"Wisdom principle 22 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 85."

"The darkest nights often reveal that the pursuit of truth is a lifelong endeavor."

"To master the mind is to understand that the most profound truths are found in silence."

"It is a enduring truth that breathe deeply, anchor your attention in this breath, and let the storm pass — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."

"Make the most of your regrets.… To regret deeply is to live afresh."

"What men call social virtue, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm."

"In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood."

"The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency."

"Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing."

"I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness."

"In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high."

"We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches."

"Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars."

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."

"As for doing good that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution."

"It is a profound truth that stillness is not emptiness; it is the presence of unencumbered clarity."

"It is a unyielding truth that let thoughts come and go like clouds across an undisturbed autumn sky."

"In Wildness is the preservation of the world."

"There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life."

"I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while."

"Wisdom principle 103 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 33."

"Wisdom principle 93 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 27."

"Wisdom principle 83 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 21."

"Wisdom principle 63 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 9."

"Wisdom principle 47 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 100."

"Wisdom principle 37 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 94."

"Wisdom principle 27 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 88."

"Wisdom principle 17 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 82."

"Wisdom principle 12 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 79."

"Wisdom principle 7 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 76."

"Wisdom principle 2 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 73."

"It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature."

"There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature."

"The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected."

"Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution."

"Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand."

"The bluebird carries the sky on his back."

"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen."

"Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?"

"Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself."

"There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages."

"What is human warfare but just this an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party."

"Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth."

"Reason is the torch that illuminates the dark corridors of superstition. Such is the immutable nature of understanding — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"Things do not change; we change."

"There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance."

"If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see."

"Do what you love. Know your own bone gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."

"Live your life, do your work, then take your hat."

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good be good for something."

"They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar."

"It is a subtle truth that to speak the truth in a season of deceit is an act of supreme bravery — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"If misery loves company, misery has company enough."

"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."

"In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society."

"Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men."

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."

"It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know."

"Wealth is the ability to fully experience life."

"Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams."

"I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

"I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude."

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."

"No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well."

"There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone."

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."

"I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

"May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!"

"Those whom we can love, we can hate to others we are indifferent."

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

"A peaceful heart knows that the strength of a community lies in its compassion."

"Every sunset is a reminder that a grateful heart is a magnet for miracles."

"If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?"

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

"Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it."

"Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him."

"I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business."

"The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend."

"The language of friendship is not words but meanings."

"Be true to your work, your word, and your friend."

"I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will."

"While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings."

"Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling."

"It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart it being much more sensitive."

"This world is but a canvas to our imagination."

"The law will never make a man free it is men who have got to make the law free."

"How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."

"If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law."

"That government is best which governs least."

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads."

"Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul."

"God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us."

"Faith never makes a confession."

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

"We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success."

"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours."

"A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance."

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."

"The man who goes alone can start today but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready."

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"

"I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls."

"I had three chairs in my house one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society."

"I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes."

"Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them."

"It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes."

"To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea."

"Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are."

"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all."

"True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance."

"Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe."

"The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness."

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest."

"A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars."

"Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!"

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character."

"The perception of beauty is a moral test."

"Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain."

"All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning."

"What is called genius is the abundance of life and health."

"'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes."

"As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society."

"It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man."

"Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one."

"It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence."

"Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve."

"Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh."

"Make the most of your regrets never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh."

"I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention. Man is but the place where I stand, and the prospect hence is infinite."

"As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness."

"Things do not change we change."

"I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men."

"I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now."

"Men are born to succeed, not to fail."

"The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time."

"To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle."

"To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain."

"The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles."

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."

"It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise."