Henry David Thoreau

He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

— Henry David Thoreau

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

— Henry David Thoreau

I have lived some thirty-odd years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.

— Henry David Thoreau

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

— Henry David Thoreau

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm

— Henry David Thoreau

How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

— Henry David Thoreau

Water is the only drink for a wise man.

— Henry David Thoreau

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.

— Henry David Thoreau

The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.

— Henry David Thoreau

True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.

— Henry David Thoreau

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts -- a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

— Henry David Thoreau

After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.

— Henry David Thoreau

If I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

— Henry David Thoreau

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

— Henry David Thoreau

We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; -- for a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin of Arabian trees. -- Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.

— Henry David Thoreau

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

— Henry David Thoreau

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

— Henry David Thoreau

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution --such call I good books.

— Henry David Thoreau

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.

— Henry David Thoreau

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

— Henry David Thoreau

Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes.

— Henry David Thoreau

Things do not change, we do.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

Pity the man who has a character to support --it is worse than a large family -- he is silent poor indeed.

— Henry David Thoreau

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

— Henry David Thoreau

We falsely attribute to men a determined character -- putting together all their yesterdays -- and averaging them -- we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support -- it is worse than a large family -- he is the silent poor indeed.

— Henry David Thoreau

If you give money, spend yourself with it.

— Henry David Thoreau

The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it.

— Henry David Thoreau

City life is millions of people being lonesome together.

— Henry David Thoreau

Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked what I thought, and attended to my answer.

— Henry David Thoreau

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

— Henry David Thoreau

As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.

— Henry David Thoreau

If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.

— Henry David Thoreau

Let nothing come between you and the light.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

— Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

— Henry David Thoreau

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

— Henry David Thoreau

Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.

— Henry David Thoreau

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

— Henry David Thoreau

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.

— Henry David Thoreau

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.

— Henry David Thoreau

Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?

— Henry David Thoreau

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

— Henry David Thoreau

What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.

— Henry David Thoreau

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

— Henry David Thoreau

The heart is forever inexperienced.

— Henry David Thoreau

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.

— Henry David Thoreau

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.

— Henry David Thoreau

Being is the great explainer.

— Henry David Thoreau

Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone. It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.

— Henry David Thoreau

The eye is the jewel of the body.

— Henry David Thoreau

My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologies. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought -- with these I deal.

— Henry David Thoreau

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

— Henry David Thoreau

We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.

— Henry David Thoreau

Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.

— Henry David Thoreau

The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

— Henry David Thoreau

Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor.

— Henry David Thoreau

By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber.

— Henry David Thoreau

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.

— Henry David Thoreau

People die of fright and live of confidence.

— Henry David Thoreau

The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled.

— Henry David Thoreau

One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve.

— Henry David Thoreau

I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.

— Henry David Thoreau

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.

— Henry David Thoreau

A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams.

— Henry David Thoreau

We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then

— Henry David Thoreau

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

— Henry David Thoreau