Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
Henry David Thoreau

The perception of beauty is a moral test.
Henry David Thoreau

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
Henry David Thoreau

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
Henry David Thoreau

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
Henry David Thoreau

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

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.
Henry David Thoreau

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
Henry David Thoreau

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.
Henry David Thoreau

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.
Henry David Thoreau

Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
Henry David Thoreau

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

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

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

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

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
Henry David Thoreau

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.
Henry David Thoreau

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Henry David Thoreau

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts - a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.
Henry David Thoreau

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.
Henry David Thoreau

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
Henry David Thoreau

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

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.
Henry David Thoreau

We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
Henry David Thoreau

What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.
Henry David Thoreau

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.
Henry David Thoreau

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

What is once well done is done forever.
Henry David Thoreau

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

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
Henry David Thoreau

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
Henry David Thoreau

What you get by achieving your goals is to as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
Henry David Thoreau

What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
Henry David Thoreau

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.
Henry David Thoreau

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Henry David Thoreau