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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 4

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He who walks alone, waits for no-one.

He who walks alone, waits for no-one.

Henry David Thoreau
Waiting, Walks

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive.

Henry David Thoreau
Intellectual, Alive, Poetic
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.142

In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?'

Henry David Thoreau
War, Jail, Mexican

If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Plant, Dies
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.83, Penguin

Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Sand, Faster

Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well.

Henry David Thoreau
Greatness, Important, Ordinary

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Real, Believe
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.201, Yale University Press

Where the most beautiful wild flowers grow, there mans spirit is fed and poets grow.

Henry David Thoreau
Beautiful, Flower, Spirit
Henry David Thoreau (1991). “A Yearning Toward Wildness: Environmental Quotations from the Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, Peachtree Pub Limited

It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.

Henry David Thoreau
Happiness, Success, Hope

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Life, Motivational
Walden ch. 18 (1854)

I have lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude.

Henry David Thoreau
Solitude, Glorious
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1861, Delphi Classics

In the long run, you hit only what you aim at.

Henry David Thoreau
Success, Sports, Running

There is no beginning too small.

Henry David Thoreau

Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Cutting, Clouds
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2268, Delphi Classics

Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Weather, Fields
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.84, Heron Dance Press

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Cutting, Wish
Walden ch. 2 (1854)

March to the beat of your own drummer.

Henry David Thoreau
Healing, Teens, Overcoming Adversity

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Henry David Thoreau
Inspiring, Time, Fog
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.14, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Happiness, Depression

The question is not what you look at – but how you look & whether you see.

Henry David Thoreau
Looks
"A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851".

If you will not try, you will go to your grave with your song still inside you.

Henry David Thoreau
Song, Trying, Graves

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

Henry David Thoreau
Funny, Wisdom, Truth
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)

Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law.

Henry David Thoreau
Courage, Law, Liberty

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Life, Trust
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.9, Courier Corporation

Do not despair of your life. You have force enough to overcome your obstacles.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Despair, Overcoming
Henry David Thoreau (1894). “Winter”

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