Authors:

Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 18

All Quotes Achievement Acting Adventure Age Aids Alcohol Ambition Anxiety Appreciation Army Art Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Authority Autumn Beach Beauty Beer Being Alone Being Yourself Bible Birth Bones Bravery Business Caring Change Character Charity Chastity Children Christ Christianity Church Civil Disobedience College Commitment Common Sense Communication Community Confidence Conformity Confusion Consciousness Constitution Contemplation Cooking Copper Country Courage Creation Creativity Criticism Culture Curiosity Darkness Death Deception Democracy Depression Design Desire Destiny Determination Devil Disappointment Discipline Dogma Doubt Drinking Duty Dying Earth Eating Ecology Economics Economy Education Effort Encouraging Energy Enthusiasm Environment Eternity Ethics Evil Excellence Exercise Expectations Experience Failing Failure Faith Fame Family Farming Fashion Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Flying Focus Food Freedom Friends Friendship Funny Future Gardening Generosity Genius Giving Giving Up God Gold Good Deeds Good Morning Goodbye Goodness Gossip Grace Graduation Gratitude Greatness Greed Greek Grief Grieving Growth Happiness Hard Work Harmony Hate Healing Health Heart Heaven Heroism History Home Honesty Honor Hope House Human Nature Humanity Humility Hunger Hunting Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Immortality Imperfection Impulse Independence Individuality Injustice Innocence Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Jesus Journalism Journey Joy Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Language Latin Laughter Learning Liberty Life Listening Literature Live Life Loneliness Losing Loss Love Luck Lying Manhood Mankind Marriage Meditation Memories Mental Health Mercy Mindfulness Money Moon Morality Morning Motivation Motivational Mountain Music Nature Navy Observation Office Opportunity Optimism Overcoming Past Patience Patriotism Peace Perception Perfection Perseverance Personality Perspective Philanthropy Philosophy Physics Pleasure Poetry Police Politics Positive Poverty Power Praise Prayer Pride Privacy Progress Property Purity Purpose Quality Rain Reading Reality Rebellion Reflection Regret Reincarnation Religion Reputation Respect Responsibility Revelations Revolution Risk Running Sabbath Sacrifice Sad Sadness Sailing Sanity School Science Self Esteem Self Reliance Self Respect Serenity Silence Simple Life Simplicity Sin Sincerity Singing Skins Slavery Sleep Sloth Social Responsibility Society Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Sports Spring Strength Struggle Students Study Style Success Suffering Summer Sunrise Sunshine Sympathy Tea Teaching Technology Temperance Thanksgiving Time Today Tradition Tragedy Transcendentalism Travel True Love Trust Truth Understanding Universe Violence Virtue Vision Volunteer Voting Waiting Walking Wall War Water Weakness Wealth Weed Wilderness Wine Winter Wisdom Work Writing Yoga Youth
As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top.

As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top.

Henry David Thoreau
Climbing, Solitude, Society
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.218, Jazzybee Verlag

With wisdom we shall learn liberality.

Henry David Thoreau
Wisdom, Generosity, Liberality
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.211, Penguin

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.

Henry David Thoreau
Wealth, Inequality, Superfluous
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden and on the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, p.233, Henry David Thoreau

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 may you feel your pulse.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Life, Sympathy

Events, circumstances, etc., have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.

Henry David Thoreau
Spring, Etc, Events
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.129, Courier Corporation

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
Time, Moon, Men
Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.167, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Kind, Anarchist
Civil Disobedience (1849) See Ralph Waldo Emerson 29; O'Sullivan 1; Shipley 1

Knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own.

Henry David Thoreau
Communication, Knowledge, Men
Michael Benjamin Berger, Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Thoreau's Late Career and The Dispersion of Seeds: The Saunterer's Synoptic Vision”, p.83, Camden House

All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an inhabitant of the land and all its products have a certain fabulous quality, as if they belonged to another planet.

Henry David Thoreau
Sea, Land, Quality
Henry David Thoreau (1866). “Cape Cod”, p.61

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.

Henry David Thoreau
Time, Future, Past
'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

Surely joy is the condition of life.

Henry David Thoreau
Joy, Conditions
Henry David Thoreau, Abigail Rorer, Bradley Dean (2010). “Of Woodland Pools Spring-Holes and Ditches: Excerpts from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau”, p.7, Counterpoint Press

In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial.

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Philosophy, Gita
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Walden: Life in the Woods”, p.184, Gibbs Smith

It is only necessary that man should start a fence that Nature should carry it on and complete it. The farmer cannot plow quite up to the rails or wall which he himself has placed, and hence it often becomes a hedgerow and sometimes a coppice.

Henry David Thoreau
Wall, Men, Hedgerows
David R. Foster, Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Thoreau's Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape”, p.67, Harvard University Press

One must maintain a little bittle of summer, even in the middle of winter.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Summer, Nature

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

Henry David Thoreau
Hell, Curious, Feels
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.312, Simon and Schuster

Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

Henry David Thoreau
Machines, Life Is, Friction
Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.9, Hayes Barton Press

Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but they have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency.

Henry David Thoreau
Lying, Moving, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.210, Graphic Arts Books

In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle of the law. What is human warfare but just this, - an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party. Men make an arbitrary code, and, because it is not right, they try to make it prevail by might. The moral law does not want any champion. Its asserters do not go to war. It was never infringed with impunity. It is inconsistent to decry war and maintain law, for if there were no need of war there would be no need of law.

Henry David Thoreau
War, Lying, Party
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2123, Delphi Classics

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

Henry David Thoreau
Stars, Night, Jewels
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1261, Delphi Classics

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Courage, Mean
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.232, Xist Publishing

To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating.

Henry David Thoreau
Company

Impulse is, after all, the best linguist; its logic, if not conformable to Aristotle, cannot fail to be most convincing.

Henry David Thoreau
Logic, Failing, Impulse
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Early Spring in Massachusetts: From the Journal of Henry David Thoreau”, p.51, Library of Alexandria

This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.

Henry David Thoreau
Complaining, Satisfaction, Life Is
Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865). “Letters to Various Persons”, p.188

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

Henry David Thoreau
Funny, Humor, Effective Listening
Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.103, Cambridge University Press

Methinks that the moment my legs began to move, my thoughts began to flow.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Travel, Moving

You May Also Like: