Henry David Thoreau Quotes

1,894 Sourced Quotes

There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world over, living on anticipation.

Henry David Thoreau
To say that a man is your Friend means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy.

Henry David Thoreau
There is a certain perfection in accident which we never consciously attain.

Henry David Thoreau
But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little have been tried.

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

Henry David Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.

Henry David Thoreau
If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.

Henry David Thoreau
I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

Henry David Thoreau
The constant abrasion and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth.

Henry David Thoreau
This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.

Henry David Thoreau
That aim in life is highest which requires the highest and finest discipline.

Henry David Thoreau
I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country's God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks.

Henry David Thoreau
It takes two to speak the truth, — one to speak, and another to hear.

Henry David Thoreau
If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man,--and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,--it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and 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
We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

Henry David Thoreau
I have made a short excursion into the new world which the Indian dwells in, or is. He begins where we leave off.

Henry David Thoreau
Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shellfish and the hectic glow of consumption.

Henry David Thoreau
Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually thus fair and distinct? All our lives want a suitable background. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in a desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon.

Henry David Thoreau
All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed,but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it.

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

Henry David Thoreau