Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.

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

Henry David Thoreau
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

Henry David Thoreau
Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower into a truth.

Henry David Thoreau
When I had mapped the pond... I laid a rule on the map lengthwise, and then breadthwise, and found, to my surprise, that the line of greatest length intersected the line of greatest breadth exactly at the point of greatest depth.

Henry David Thoreau
May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!

Henry David Thoreau
True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.

Henry David Thoreau
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Henry David Thoreau
So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.

Henry David Thoreau
I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.

Henry David Thoreau
The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

Henry David Thoreau
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

Henry David Thoreau
Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Henry David Thoreau
We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

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 hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came? — till you and I came over to him? The very fact that he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him from ordinary heroes. His company was small indeed, because few could be found worthy to pass muster. Each one who there laid down his life for the poor and oppressed was a picked man, culled out of many thousands, if not millions; apparently a man of principle, of rare courage, and devoted humanity; ready to sacrifice his life at any moment for the benefit of his fellow-man.

Henry David Thoreau
As for conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I don't think much of that.

Henry David Thoreau
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.

Henry David Thoreau
And the cost of a thing, it will be remembered, is the amount of life it requires to be exchanged for it.

Henry David Thoreau
Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.

Henry David Thoreau
In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts...

Henry David Thoreau
Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sensei Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?

Henry David Thoreau
The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?

Henry David Thoreau
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

Henry David Thoreau
Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.

Henry David Thoreau
I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

Henry David Thoreau
I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don't get enough for this year, I shall cry all the next.

Henry David Thoreau
So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

Henry David Thoreau
If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

Henry David Thoreau
Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

Henry David Thoreau