Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher.

Henry David Thoreau
Not less important are the observers of the birds than the birds themselves.

Henry David Thoreau
If rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, related by one half its structure to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful bird.

Henry David Thoreau
Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners?

Henry David Thoreau
I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

Henry David Thoreau
Our taste is too delicate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope.

Henry David Thoreau
If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new truth there.

Henry David Thoreau
Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic, and his trappings will have to serve that mood too.

Henry David Thoreau
A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.

Henry David Thoreau
Ninety-nine one-hundredths of our lives we are mere hedgers and ditchers, but from time to time we meet with reminders of our destiny.

Henry David Thoreau
The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.

Henry David Thoreau
In society you will not find health, but in nature. Unless our feet at least stood in the midst of nature, all our faces would bepale and livid. Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so.

Henry David Thoreau
The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must bestripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living laid for a foundation.

Henry David Thoreau
The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions.

Henry David Thoreau
I think that no experience which I have today comes up to, or is comparable with, the experiences of my boyhood.

Henry David Thoreau
From my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason for a savage's preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit.

Henry David Thoreau
My Friend is that one whom I can associate with my choicest thought.

Henry David Thoreau
Good deeds are no less good because their object is unworthy.

Henry David Thoreau
As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any. We can tolerate all philosophies.... It is the attitude of these men, more than any communication which they make, that attracts us.

Henry David Thoreau
Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature would not appear so rich, the profusion so rich, if we knew a use for everything.

Henry David Thoreau
I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely blossom; and soI am content to live.

Henry David Thoreau
The sacredness, if there is any, is all in yourself and not in the place.

Henry David Thoreau
Of what use were it, pray, to get a little wood to burn, to warm your body this cold weather, if there were not a divine fire kindled at the same time to warm your spirit?

Henry David Thoreau
It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected; too faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself.

Henry David Thoreau
A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can appreciate.

Henry David Thoreau
Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so richand varied in its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, as this is?

Henry David Thoreau
Our actual Friends are but distant relations of those to whom we are pledged.

Henry David Thoreau
The lichen on the rocks is a rude and simple shield which beginning and imperfect Nature suspended there. Still hangs her wrinkledtrophy.

Henry David Thoreau
This world has many rings, like Saturn, and we live now on the outmost of them all. None can say deliberately that he inhabits thesame sphere, or is contemporary, with the flower which his hands have plucked, and though his feet may seem to crush it, inconceivable spaces and ages separate them, and perchance there is no danger that he will hurt it.

Henry David Thoreau