Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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We say justly that the weak person is flat, for, like all flat substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is, on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides all the way through life.... But the brave man is a perfect sphere, which cannot fall on its flat side and is equally strong every way.

Henry David Thoreau
Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.

Henry David Thoreau
The bad are frequently good enough to let you see how bad they are, but the good as frequently endeavor to get between you and themselves.

Henry David Thoreau
The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow,-one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.

Henry David Thoreau
So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good breeding" respects only secondary objects.

Henry David Thoreau
The value of any experience is measured, of course, not by the amount of money, but the amount of development we get out of it.

Henry David Thoreau
Can we not do without the society of our gossip a little while, - have our own thoughts to cheer us?

Henry David Thoreau
I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings.

Henry David Thoreau
The physiologist says it [ripening of fruit] is "due to an increased absorption of oxygen - That is the scientific account of the matter - only a reassertion of the fact. But I am more interested in the rosy cheek than I am to know what particular diet the maiden fed on.

Henry David Thoreau
A forest is in all Mythologies a sacred place, as the oak among the Druids, and the grove of Egeria - And what is Robin Hood - without his Barnsdale and Sherwood - It is the life that is lived in the unexplored scenery of the wood that charms us.

Henry David Thoreau
The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July.

Henry David Thoreau
Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are constantly being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.

Henry David Thoreau
We waded so gently and reverently, or we pulled together so smoothly, that the fishes of thought were not scared from the stream, nor feared any angler on the bank, but came and went grandly, like the clouds which came and went on the western sky, and the mother-o'-pearl flocks which sometimes form and dissolve there.

Henry David Thoreau
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.

Henry David Thoreau
The richest gifts we can bestow are the least marketable. We hate the kindness which we understand.

Henry David Thoreau
Was awakened in the night to a strain of music dying away, - passing travellers singing. My being was so expanded and infinitely and divinely related for a brief season that I saw how unexhausted, how almost wholly unimproved, was man's capacity for a divine life. When I remembered what a narrow and finite life I should anon awake to!

Henry David Thoreau
The world is a strange place for a playhouse to stand within it.

Henry David Thoreau
We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects.

Henry David Thoreau
Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as if they knew its qualities very well, and despised them; as owls might talk of sunshine,--none of your sunshine!--but this word commonly means merely something which they do not understand,--which they are abed and asleep to, however much it may be worth their while to be up and awake to it.

Henry David Thoreau
How prompt we are to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our bodies; how slow to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls!

Henry David Thoreau
The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence.

Henry David Thoreau
As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public.

Henry David Thoreau
I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse.

Henry David Thoreau
We do not learn much from learned books, but from true, sincere, human books, from frank and honest biographies.

Henry David Thoreau
So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.

Henry David Thoreau
If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

Henry David Thoreau
Associate reverently, and as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.

Henry David Thoreau
What other words, we may almost ask, are memorable and worthy to be repeated than those which love has inspired? It is wonderful that they were ever uttered. They are few and rare indeed, but, like a strain of music, they are incessantly repeated and modulated by the memory. All other words crumble off with the stucco which overlies the heart. We should not dare to repeat these now aloud. We are not competent to hear them at all times.

Henry David Thoreau
The moose is singularly grotesque and awkward to look at. Why should it stand so high at the shoulders? Why have so long a head? Why have no tail to speak of?

Henry David Thoreau
The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence.

Henry David Thoreau