Henry David Thoreau quotes
American naturalist and essayist. Walden records two years lived simply by a Massachusetts pond, a meditation on awakening and the genuine life.
47 passages across 18 themes. More on Henry David Thoreau.
On wholeness
“I am a parcel of vain strivings tied / By a chance bond together, / Dangling this way and that, their links / Were made so loose and wide, / Methinks, / For milder weather.”
“The life that I aspire to live / No man proposeth me—No trade upon the street / Wears its emblazonry.”
“When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?”
“The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.”
“A slight sound at evening lifts me up by the ears, and makes life seem inexpressibly serene and grand. It may be Uranus, or it may be in the shutter.”
“The bluebird carries the sky on his back.”
“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.”
“Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”
“That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”
“It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves.”
“The savage in man is never quite eradicated.”
“I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.”
“Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.”
“I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject.”
“The rich man... is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.”
On time
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth.”
“An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”
“And now, at half-past ten o'clock, I hear the cockerels crow in Hubbard's barns, and morning is already anticipated. It is the feathered, wakeful thought in us that anticipates the following day.”
“How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”
On presence
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.”
“But now I see I was not plucked for naught, / And after in life's vase / Of glass set while I might survive, / But by a kind hand brought / Alive / To a strange place.”
“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”
On action
“Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf / Than that I may not disappoint myself, / That in my action I may soar as high / As I can now discern with this clear eye.”
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
“He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.”
On truth
“Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough, / What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town, / If juster battles are enacted now / Between the ants upon this hummock's crown?”
“Truth, Goodness, Beauty — those celestial thrins, / Continually are born; e'en now the Universe, / With thousand throats, and eke with greener smiles, / Its joy confesses at their recent birth.”
“The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.”
On purpose
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?”
On mind
“My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read,'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large / Down in the meadow, where is richer feed, / And will not mind to hit their proper targe.”
“This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge... It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature.”
On contentment
“It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?”
“Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?”
On wisdom
“Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.”
“Any fool can make a rule / And every fool will mind it.”
On faith
“We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes.”
“For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms, and did my duty faithfully, though I never received one cent for it.”
On freedom
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison... the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.”
On joy
“You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.”
On character
“That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another's. We see so much only as we possess.”
On discipline
“The Indian...stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison.”
On change
“And the cost of a thing it will be remembered as the amount of life it requires to be exchanged for it.”
On fear
“Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself.”
On beauty
“The perception of beauty is a moral test.”
On love
“You must love the crust of the earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake; you must be able to extract nutriment out of a sand heap.”