Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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The murmurs of many a famous river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, as to more distant dwellers on its banks;many a poet's stream, floating the helms and shields of heroes on its bosom.

Henry David Thoreau
What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after all, love their Friends greatly. I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other's presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man.

Henry David Thoreau
When it was proposed to me to go abroad, rub oft some rust, and better my condition in a worldly sense, I fear lest my life will lose some of its homeliness. If these fields and streams and woods, the phenomena of nature here, and the simple occupations of the inhabitants should cease to interest and inspire me, no culture or wealth would atone for the loss.

Henry David Thoreau
Critical acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the past cannot be presented; we cannot know what we are not. But one veilhangs over past, present, and future, and it is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is. Where a battle has been fought, you will find nothing but the bones of men and beasts; where a battle is being fought, there are hearts beating.

Henry David Thoreau
It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.

Henry David Thoreau
The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organization.

Henry David Thoreau
It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas, and grander conceptions of our duties in this world. It did expand us a little.

Henry David Thoreau
There is always some accident in the best things, whether thoughts or expressions or deeds. The memorable thought, the happy expression, the admirable deed are only partly ours.

Henry David Thoreau
That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

Henry David Thoreau
Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.

Henry David Thoreau
The very willow-rows lopped every three years for fuel or powder, - and every sizable pine and oak, or other forest tree, cut down within the memory of man! As if individual speculators were to be allowed to export the clouds out of the sky, or the stars out of the firmament, one by one. We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.

Henry David Thoreau
If you are a seer, whenever you meet a man you will see all that he owns, ay, and much that he pretends to disown, behind him.

Henry David Thoreau
One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.

Henry David Thoreau
The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.

Henry David Thoreau
Look not to legislatures and churches for your guidance, nor to any soulless incorporated bodies, but to inspirited or inspired ones.

Henry David Thoreau
It is after we get home that we really go over the mountain, if ever.

Henry David Thoreau
What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter.

Henry David Thoreau
For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects. I was so absorbed in him as to be surprised whenever I detected the routine of the natural world surviving still, or met persons going about their affairs indifferent.

Henry David Thoreau
How full of creative genius is the air in which these are generated! I should hardly admire them more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat.

Henry David Thoreau
Alas! this is the crying sin of the age, this want of faith in the prevalence of a man. Nothing can be effected but by one man. Hewho wants help wants everything. True, this is the condition of our weakness, but it can never be the means of our recovery. We must first succeed alone, that we may enjoy our success together.

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

Henry David Thoreau
I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary.

Henry David Thoreau
In the wildest nature, there is not only the material of the most cultivated life, and a sort of anticipation of the last result,but a greater refinement already than is ever attained by man.... Nature is prepared to welcome into her scenery the finest work of human art, for she is herself an art so cunning that the artist never appears in his work.

Henry David Thoreau
Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth.

Henry David Thoreau
Faith, indeed, is all the reform that is needed; it is itself a reform.

Henry David Thoreau
A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts.

Henry David Thoreau
My friend is one who takes me for what I am. A stranger takes me for something else than what I am.... What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter which lie close together to keep each other warm. It brings men together in crowds and mobs in bar-rooms and elsewhere, but it does not deserve the name of virtue.

Henry David Thoreau
If I wished to see a mountain or other scenery under the most favorable auspices, I would go to it in foul weather, so as to be there when it cleared up; we are then in the most suitable mood, and nature is most fresh and inspiring. There is no serenity so fair as that which is just established in a tearful eye.

Henry David Thoreau
I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low-flying bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my head, along the shore. So, turning the other side of my half-clad body to the fire, I sought slumber again.

Henry David Thoreau
It is worth the while to live respectably unto ourselves. We can possibly get along with a neighbor, even with a bedfellow, whom we respect but very little; but as soon as it comes to this, that we do not respect ourselves, then we do not get along at all, no matter how much money we are paid for halting.

Henry David Thoreau