Thoreau Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Thoreau

Thoreau Quotes & Sayings

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The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals. — Henry David Thoreau

No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. — Henry David Thoreau

How can he remember well his ignorance - which his growth requires - who has so often to use his knowledge? — Henry David Thoreau

The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet. — Henry David Thoreau

The nonchalance and dolce-far-niente air of nature and society hint at infinite periods in the progress of mankind. — Henry David Thoreau

Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. — Henry David Thoreau

Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. — Henry David Thoreau

The savage in man is never quite eradicated. — 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

Say, Not so, and you will out circle the philosophers. — Henry David Thoreau

Friends ... They are kind to each other's hopes. They cherish each other's dreams. — Henry David Thoreau

In solitude especialy do we begin to appreciate the advantage of living with someone who can think. — Henry David Thoreau

Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory. — Henry David Thoreau

One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. — Henry David Thoreau

What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today? — Henry David Thoreau

Dissent without action is consent. — Henry David Thoreau

Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray. — Henry David Thoreau

I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. — Henry David Thoreau

If I should sell my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. — Henry David Thoreau

The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow. — Henry David Thoreau

It is very rare that you meet with obstacles in this world, which the humblest man has not faculties to surmount. — Henry David Thoreau

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

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. — Henry David Thoreau

Let us consider under what disadvantages Science has hitherto labored before we pronounce thus confidently on her progress. — Henry David Thoreau

O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
— Henry David Thoreau

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. — Henry David Thoreau

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve. — Henry David Thoreau

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. — Henry David Thoreau

lET HIM MARCH TO THE MUSIC HE HEARS — Henry David Thoreau

The most difficult thing to understand during conversation is silence. — Henry David Thoreau

They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy evil, that they may no longer have have it to regret. — Henry David Thoreau

Nothing but great antiquity can make graveyards interesting to me. I have no friends there. — Henry David Thoreau

People die of fright and live of confidence. — Henry David Thoreau

I have heard of many going astray even in the village streets, when the darkness was so thick you could cut it with a knife, as the saying is ... — Henry David Thoreau

Only what is thought, said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good. — Henry David Thoreau

I am too high born to be propertied, To be a second at control, Or useful serving-man and instrument To any sovereign state throughout the world. — Henry David Thoreau

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. — Henry David Thoreau

Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. — Henry David Thoreau

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor. — Henry David Thoreau

It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning. — Henry David Thoreau

Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you to let you alone. — Henry David Thoreau

I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour. — Henry David Thoreau

Men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries; — Henry David Thoreau

Where there is a brave man, in the thickest of the fight, there is the post of honor. — Henry David Thoreau

It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do. — Henry David Thoreau

We discover a new world every time we see the earth again after it has been covered for a season with snow. — Henry David Thoreau

Truly the stars were given for a consolation to man. — Henry David Thoreau

Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. — Henry David Thoreau

Poetry cannot breathe in the scholar's atmosphere. — Henry David Thoreau

If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care. — Henry David Thoreau

As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. — Henry David Thoreau

What have I to do with plows? I cut another furrow than you see. — Henry David Thoreau

There are many fine things we cannot say if we have to shout. — Henry David Thoreau

Being a teacher is like being in jail; once it's on your record, you can never get rid of it. — Henry David Thoreau

Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody. — Henry David Thoreau

The only danger in Friendship is that it will end. — Henry David Thoreau

The newest is but the oldest made visible to our senses. — Henry David Thoreau

A nation may be ever so civilized and yet lack wisdom. — Henry David Thoreau

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. — Henry David Thoreau

Are not all finite beings better pleased with motions relative than absolute? — Henry David Thoreau

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. — Henry David Thoreau

There are many skillful apprentices, but few master workmen. — Henry David Thoreau

Even in civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development. — Henry David Thoreau

The vessel, though her masts be firm,Beneath her copper bears a worm. — Henry David Thoreau

Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less? — Henry David Thoreau

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

It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. — Henry David Thoreau

Most, it would seem to me, do not care for nature and would sell their share. — Henry David Thoreau

The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show. — Henry David Thoreau

Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present. — 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

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

The body can feed the body only. — Henry David Thoreau

Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself. — Henry David Thoreau

I love reform better than its modes. — Henry David Thoreau

Art may varnish and gild, but it can do no more. — Henry David Thoreau

My life is like a stroll upon the beach, as near to the ocean's edge as I can go. — Henry David Thoreau

Do not despair of your life. You have force enough to overcome your obstacles. — Henry David Thoreau

Expect no trivial truth from me, unless I am on the witness- stand. I will come as near to lying as you can drive a coach and four. — Henry David Thoreau

In their daily life, all are braver than they know. — Henry David Thoreau

We are older by faith than by experience. — Henry David Thoreau

Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants. — Henry David Thoreau

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds. — Henry David Thoreau

Instead of the scream of a fish hawk scaring the fishes, is heard the whistle of the steam-engine, arousing a country to its progress. — Henry David Thoreau

No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature, which holds its life by the same tenure that he does. — Henry David Thoreau

All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. — Henry David Thoreau

The stars are God's dreams, thoughts remembered in the silence of his night. — Henry David Thoreau

Of what significance are the things you can forget. — Henry David Thoreau

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear. — Henry David Thoreau

I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid. — Henry David Thoreau

In the religion of all nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men never attain to. — Henry David Thoreau

Society is commonly too cheap. — Henry David Thoreau

To say that a man is your Friend means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. — Henry David Thoreau

Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures. — Henry David Thoreau

When we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen. — Henry David Thoreau

It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it. — Henry David Thoreau

You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might. — Henry David Thoreau

The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. — Henry David Thoreau

It is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall speak so that they can understand you. Neither men nor toadstools grow so. — Henry David Thoreau