Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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

Henry David Thoreau
Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.

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

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
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather, indicates, his fate.

Henry David Thoreau
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Henry David Thoreau
I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings.

Henry David Thoreau
The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality.

Henry David Thoreau
He listens equally to the prayers of the believer and the unbeliever.

Henry David Thoreau
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel.

Henry David Thoreau
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Henry David Thoreau
The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet's life. It is what hehas become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince's gallery.

Henry David Thoreau
What avail all your scholarly accomplishments and learning, compared with wisdom and manhood? To omit his other behavior, see whata work this comparatively unread and unlettered man wrote within six weeks. Where is our professor of belles-lettres, or of logic and rhetoric, who can write so well?

Henry David Thoreau
Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.

Henry David Thoreau
It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellowmen to have an interest in your enterprise.

Henry David Thoreau
How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding ; How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile.

Henry David Thoreau
If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.

Henry David Thoreau
We are independent of the change we detect. The longer the lever, the less perceptible its motion. It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero then will know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely; we shall sooner overtake the dawn by remaining here than by hurrying over the hills of the west.

Henry David Thoreau
When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, [I] submit myself to my instinct to decide for me.

Henry David Thoreau