Henry David Thoreau Quotes And Sayings

Men Have Become The Tools Of Their Tools.

It Is Only When We Forget All Our Learning That We Begin To Know.

To Be Admitted To Nature's Hearth Costs Nothing. None Is Excluded, But Excludes Himself. You Have Only To Push Aside The Curtain.

To Be Admitted To Nature's Hearth Costs Nothing. None Is Excluded, But Excludes Himself. You Have Only To Push Aside The Curtain.

Every People Have Gods To Suit Their Circumstances.

There Is But One Stage For The Peasant And The Actor.

No Face Which We Can Give To A Matter Will Stead Us So Well At Last As The Truth. This Alone Wears Well.

Before Printing Was Discovered, A Century Was Equal To A Thousand Years.

Generally Speaking, A Howling Wilderness Does Not Howl: It Is The Imagination Of The Traveler That Does The Howling.

The Only Obligation Which I Have A Right To Assume Is To Do At Any Time What I Think Right.

As A Single Footstep Will Not Make A Path On The Earth, So A Single Thought Will Not Make A Pathway In The Mind. To Make A Deep Physical Path, We Walk Again And Again. To Make A Deep Mental Path, We Must Think Over And Over The Kind Of Thoughts We Wish To Dominate Our Lives.

Friends... They Cherish One Another's Hopes. They Are Kind To One Another's Dreams.

There Will Never Be A Really Free And Enlightened State Until The State Comes To Recognize The Individual As A Higher And Independent Power, From Which All Its Own Power And Authority Are Derived, And Treats Him Accordingly.

To Be Awake Is To Be Alive.

How Sweet Is The Perception Of A New Natural Fact!

Though I Do Not Believe That A Plant Will Spring Up Where No Seed Has Been, I Have Great Faith In A Seed... Convince Me That You Have A Seed There, And I Am Prepared To Expect Wonders.

I Have The Habit Of Attention To Such Excess, That My Senses Get No Rest - But Suffer From A Constant Strain.

Every Generation Laughs At The Old Fashions, But Follows Religiously The New.

Every Day Or Two, I Strolled To The Village To Hear Some Of The Gossip Which Is Incessantly Going On There, Circulating Either From Mouth To Mouth, Or From Newspaper To Newspaper, And Which, Taken In Homeopathic Doses, Was Really As Refreshing In Its Way As The Rustle Of Leaves And The Peeping Of Frogs.

If I Seem To Boast More Than Is Becoming, My Excuse Is That I Brag For Humanity Rather Than For Myself.

A Man Cannot Be Said To Succeed In This Life Who Does Not Satisfy One Friend.

In My Afternoon Walk I Would Fain Forget All My Morning Occupations And My Obligations To Society.

Disobedience Is The True Foundation Of Liberty. The Obedient Must Be Slaves.

God Reigns When We Take A Liberal View, When A Liberal View Is Presented To Us.

I Often Visited A Particular Plant Four Or Five Miles Distant, Half A Dozen Times Within A Fortnight, That I Might Know Exactly When It Opened.

Shall I Not Have Intelligence With The Earth? Am I Not Partly Leaves And Vegetable Mould Myself.

Read The Best Books First, Or You May Not Have A Chance To Read Them At All.

If A Man Constantly Aspires Is He Not Elevated?

What Is Human Warfare But Just This; An Effort To Make The Laws Of God And Nature Take Sides With One Party.

It Is Usually The Imagination That Is Wounded First, Rather Than The Heart; It Being Much More Sensitive.

As For Doing Good; That Is One Of The Professions Which Is Full. Moreover I Have Tried It Fairly And, Strange As It May Seem, Am Satisfied That It Does Not Agree With My Constitution.

Those Whom We Can Love, We Can Hate; To Others We Are Indifferent.

Faith Never Makes A Confession.

What Lies Behind Us And What Lies Ahead Of Us Are Tiny Matters Compared To What Lives Within Us.

Books Can Only Reveal Us To Ourselves, And As Often As They Do Us This Service We Lay Them Aside.

There Never Was And Is Not Likely Soon To Be A Nation Of Philosophers, Nor Am I Certain It Is Desirable That There Should Be.

Night Is Certainly More Novel And Less Profane Than Day.

There Is No Just And Serene Criticism As Yet.

There Is More Of Good Nature Than Of Good Sense At The Bottom Of Most Marriages.

Truth Is Always In Harmony With Herself, And Is Not Concerned Chiefly To Reveal The Justice That May Consist With Wrong-doing.

How Can Any Man Be Weak Who Dares To Be At All?

Do What Nobody Else Can Do For You. Omit To Do Anything Else.

Nature And Human Life Are As Various As Our Several Constitutions. Who Shall Say What Prospect Life Offers To Another?

I Have Always Been Regretting That I Was Not As Wise As The Day I Was Born.

I Have Been As Sincere A Worshipper Of Aurora As The Greeks.

There Are Moments When All Anxiety And Stated Toil Are Becalmed In The Infinite Leisure And Repose Of Nature.

Ignorance And Bungling With Love Are Better Than Wisdom And Skill Without.

An Unclean Person Is Universally A Slothful One.

Some Are Reputed Sick And Some Are Not. It Often Happens That The Sicker Man Is The Nurse To The Sounder.

The Language Of Excitement Is At Best Picturesque Merely. You Must Be Calm Before You Can Utter Oracles.