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Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Selected Quotes of Henry David Thoreau

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
Things do not change; we change.
That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
There is no remedy for love, but to love more.
The universe is wider than our views of it.
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?
All good things are wild and free.
Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them all.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
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 he hears, however measured or far away.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
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.
The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war.
He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.
A bore is someone who takes away my solitude and doesn't give me companionship in return.
I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture of mankind. The New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips and in the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such a juxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men. This is a work which Time will surely edit, reserved to crown the labors of the printing-press. This would be the Bible, or Book of Books, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost parts of the earth.
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that 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.
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.