Henry David Thoreau Quotes

1,894 Sourced Quotes

As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect.

Henry David Thoreau
I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much patience of this kind.

Henry David Thoreau
Show me two villages, one embowered in trees and blazing with all the glories of October, the other a merely trivial and treelesswaste, or with only a single tree or two for suicides, and I shall be sure that in the latter will be found the most starved and bigoted religionists and the most desperate drinkers.

Henry David Thoreau
In Canada an ordinary New England house would be mistaken for the château, and while every village here contains at least severalgentlemen or "squires," there is but one to a seigniory.

Henry David Thoreau
We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking.

Henry David Thoreau
In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men cling to this old song, because they still have moments of unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them an appetite for more.

Henry David Thoreau
Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them.

Henry David Thoreau
.. I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days....

Henry David Thoreau
When the first light dawned on the earth, and the birds awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently seaward, and the nimble early rising wind rustled the oak leaves about our tent, all people, having reinforced their bodies and their souls with sleep, and cast aside doubt and fear, were invited to unattempted adventures.

Henry David Thoreau
Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,--and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

Henry David Thoreau
True kindness is a pure divine affinity, Not founded upon human consanguinity. It is a spirit, not a blood relation, Superior to family and station.

Henry David Thoreau
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.

Henry David Thoreau
The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet.

Henry David Thoreau
From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality.

Henry David Thoreau
Work your vein till it is exhausted, or conducts you to a broader one.

Henry David Thoreau
You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blunderingclod-hopper that I am. Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an infinite brag and exaggeration. Not that I do not stand on all that I have written,--but what am I to the truth I feebly utter?

Henry David Thoreau
The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.

Henry David Thoreau
Pray, for what do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviae at last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be burned?

Henry David Thoreau
We find it difficult to choose our direction because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.

Henry David Thoreau
The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Biblewhich every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are continually dispersing. It is, in short, the only book which America has printed, and which America reads. So wide is its influence.

Henry David Thoreau
A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,--the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man's treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.

Henry David Thoreau
Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths; of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.What are the convulsions of a planet, compared with the emotions of the soul? or the rising of a thousand suns, if that is not enlightened by a ray?

Henry David Thoreau
The seeds of the life of fishes are everywhere disseminated, whether the winds waft them, or the waters float them, or the deep earth holds them; wherever a pond is dug, straightway it is stocked with this vivacious race. They have a lease of nature, and it is not yet out.

Henry David Thoreau
It is not easy to make our lives respectable by any course of activity. We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of thought, like the tortoise, somewhat helplessly; yet there is more than philosophy in that.

Henry David Thoreau
What the first philosopher taught the last will have to repeat.

Henry David Thoreau
The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It only assigns their due rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. Western philosophers have not conceived of the significance of Contemplation in their sense.

Henry David Thoreau
You ask if there is no doctrine of sorrow in my philosophy. Of acute sorrow I suppose that I know comparatively little. My saddestand most genuine sorrows are apt to be but transient regrets. The place of sorrow is supplied, perchance, by a certain hard and proportionately barren indifference. I am of kin to the sod, and partake of its dull patience,--in winter expecting the sun of spring.

Henry David Thoreau
The largest pond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube.

Henry David Thoreau
To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.

Henry David Thoreau
Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction - a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the muse.

Henry David Thoreau