Henry David Thoreau Quotes (701 Quotes)

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprized, or said in some way, that we felt like a new man in the old, and to retain it would be like putting new wine in an old bottle.

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

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.

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

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

Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love and in proportion to our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal.... Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is, in this sense, a hospital.

When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.

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

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

Always you have to contend with the stupidity of men.

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

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you, know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus you may feel your pulse.

One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

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

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

Let nothing come between you and the light.

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.

We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character putting together all their yesterdays and averaging them we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support it is worse than a large family he is the silent poor indeed.

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.

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

I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.

Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last No no it is the poet he it is who makes the truest use of the pine-who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane....

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

The three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest.

I didn't see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster.

The rich man ... is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.

I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future.

Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.

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

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

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.

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

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

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.

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

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.

No one is so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it Is the scholastic air any advantage.

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

Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

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