Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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

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

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

Henry David Thoreau
I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, — that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things.

Henry David Thoreau
Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.

Henry David Thoreau
The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

Henry David Thoreau
I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.

Henry David Thoreau
Why have we ever slandered the outward? The perception of surfaces will always have the effect of miracle to a sane sense.

Henry David Thoreau
Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be.

Henry David Thoreau
Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds?

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship is never established as an understood relation. It is a miracle which requires constant proofs. It is an exercise of the purest imagination and of the rarest faith!....

Henry David Thoreau
God is alone,-but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion.

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

Henry David Thoreau
Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.

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

Henry David Thoreau
The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but last fruits also.

Henry David Thoreau
We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

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
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.

Henry David Thoreau
Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open.

Henry David Thoreau
One is wise to cultivate the tree that bears fruit in our soul.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth strikes us from behind and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad daylight.

Henry David Thoreau
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety.

Henry David Thoreau