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Henry David Thoreau's Quotes

Henry David Thoreau profile photo

Born: 1970-01-01
Profession: Author
Nation: American
Biography of Henry David Thoreau

See the gallery for quotes by Henry David Thoreau. You can to use those 8 images of quotes as a desktop wallpapers.
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In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

Tags: Human, Silence, Words

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Tags: Evil, Hacking, Thousand

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Tags: Love, Remedy

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

Tags: Eyes, Great, Place

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Tags: Aim, Good, Simply

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

Tags: Love, Money, Work

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

Tags: Foundation, Liberty, True

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Tags: Alone, Love, Solitude

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

Tags: Character, Dreams

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Tags: Desperate, Wisdom

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Tags: Life, Poverty, Universe

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

Tags: Alone, Number, Rich

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Tags: Crowded, Rather, Sit

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Tags: Fear, Music, Times

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Tags: Feet, Heaven, Religion

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

Tags: Good, Life, Yourself

That government is best which governs least.

Tags: Best, Government, Governs

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

Tags: Book, Good, Living

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

Tags: Bone, Bury, Love

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.

Tags: Planning, Unless

Be not simply good - be good for something.

Tags: Good, Simply

Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Tags: Air, Put, Worry

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

Tags: Ability, Fact, Life

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.

Tags: Company, Enough, Misery

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

Tags: Happiness, Life, Yourself

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

Tags: Once, Wisdom, Wise
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I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

Tags: Him, Sorry, Truth

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Tags: Lives, Men, Quiet

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Tags: Busy, Enough, Question

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Tags: Dreams, Imagination, Life

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

Tags: Health, Sick, Sometimes

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

Tags: Cannot, Government, Today

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

Tags: Earth, Friends, Makes

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Tags: Regret, Regrets, Sad

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

Tags: Alone, Today, Wait

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Tags: Moment, Present, Yourself

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

Tags: Highest, Life, Quality

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

Tags: Fool, Mind, Rule

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

Tags: Genius, Hand, Nature

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

Tags: Family, Men, Morning

In wilderness is the preservation of the world.

Tags: Wilderness

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Tags: Love, Path, Walk

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

Tags: Dark, Goal, Success

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

Tags: Clothes, Distrust, Enterprise

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

Tags: Dark, Put, Sleep

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

Tags: Age, Enthusiasm, Old

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Tags: Eternity, Time

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

Tags: Environmental, God, Men

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

Tags: Discern, Innocence, Neighbors

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

Tags: Fails, Goodness, Investment

Men have become the tools of their tools.

Tags: Become, Men, Technology

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.

Tags: Away, Life, Simplify

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

Tags: Busy, Looking, Success

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

Tags: Life, Mankind, Positive

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

Tags: Answer, Greatest, Thought

The heart is forever inexperienced.

Tags: Forever, Heart

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

Tags: Experience, Life, Wealth

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

Tags: Keep, Learn, Ourselves

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Tags: Gossip, Old, Women

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

Tags: Health, Life, Motivational

Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.

Tags: Injustice, Justice, Sweet

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Tags: Sit, Vain, Write

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.

Tags: Century, Equal, Thousand

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?

Tags: House, Put, Society

Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes.

Tags: Beware, Clothes, Require

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.

Tags: Beliefs, Turn

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

Tags: Faith, Happiness, Seed

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

Tags: Her, Nature, She

It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.

Tags: Fate, Himself, Thinks

Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.

Tags: Hate, Love, Others

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

Tags: Heart, Rather, Sensitive

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

Tags: Best, Chance, May

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

Tags: Stream, Time

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

Tags: Ignorance, Love, Wisdom

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

Tags: Friends, Thoughts, Yourself

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

Tags: Money, Necessity, Soul

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

Tags: Give, Late, Prejudices

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Tags: Learning, Life, Success

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Tags: Love, Society, Time

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

Tags: Gentle, Her, Powerful

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Tags: God, Nature, War

A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.

Tags: Interest, Single, Worth

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

Tags: After, Blush, Sin

Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.

Tags: Gods, Suit

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

Tags: Born, Regretting, Wise

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

Tags: Another, Speak, Truth

If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.

Tags: Done, Speak, Write

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

Tags: High, Men, Run

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

Tags: Friendship, Society, Solitude

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Tags: Beauty, Moral, Perception

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

Tags: Himself, Nature, Push

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

Tags: Her, Nature, She

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

Tags: End, Pretty, Serious

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.

Tags: Generation, Laughs, Old

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

Tags: Culture, Sheep, True

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

Tags: Books, Nations, Wealth

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

Tags: Doubt, Faith, Her

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.

Tags: Call, Life, Run

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

Tags: Dies, Earnest, Squirrel

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Tags: Design, Good, Life
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