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Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Life - Page 5

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The cheapest way to travel, and the way to travel the farthest in the shortest distance, is to go afoot, carrying a dipper, a spoon, and a fish line, some Indian meal, some salt, and some sugar.... Any one of these

The cheapest way to travel, and the way to travel the farthest in the shortest distance, is to go afoot, carrying a dipper, a spoon, and a fish line, some Indian meal, some salt, and some sugar.... Any one of these things I mean, not all together. I have traveled thus some hundreds of miles without taking any meal in a house, sleeping on the ground when convenient, and found it cheaper, and in many respects more profitable, than staying at home. So that some have inquired why it would not be best to travel always. But I never thought of traveling simply as a means of getting a livelihood.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Travel, Distance

The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere makeshifts, and a shirking of the real business of life,--chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Real, Work
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.230, Simon and Schuster

It is not enough that our life is an easy one. We must live on the stretch, retiring to our rest like soldiers on the eve of a battle, looking forward to the strenuous sortie of the morrow.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Struggle, Soldier
Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.163, David M Gross

I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Hard Work, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.417, Penguin

In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Creativity, Men
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.144

There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Art, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.465, Modern Library

I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Senior, Learning
'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man's nobler faculties.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Business, Men
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.129, Courier Corporation

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.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Success, Agreement
'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

Your religion is where your love is.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Life, Love Life

As to conforming outwardly and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Thinking, Conformity
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1745, Delphi Classics

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Beauty, Perception
Henry David Thoreau, John C. Broderick, Robert Sattelmeyer (1981). “Journal”, p.120, Princeton University Press

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Friendship, Success
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.11, Heron Dance Press

What is peculiar in the life of a man consists not in his obedience, but his opposition, to his instincts. In one direction or another he strives to live a supernatural life.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Men, One Direction
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.61, Heron Dance Press

This life we live is a strange dream, and I don't believe at all any account men give of it.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Dream, Believe
Henry David Thoreau, Joseph O. Valentine, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Land: Nature's Canvas”, p.120, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Our thoughts are epochs in our lives; all else is but as a journal of the winds that blow while we are here.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Life, Blow

Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Beauty, Nature
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.269, Xist Publishing

Unless we do more than simply learn the trade of our time, we are but apprentices, and not yet masters of the art of life.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Wisdom, Art
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.103, Jazzybee Verlag

One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Wisdom, Men
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.16

The constant abrasion and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Growth, Decay
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.251, Xist Publishing

I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Fauns, Human Nature
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.134, Graphic Arts Books

Thus was my first year's life in the woods completed; and the second year was similar to it. I finally left Walden September 6th,1847.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Years, Woods
Henry David Thoreau, Laura Ross (2009). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods: Bold-faced Ideas for Living a Truly Transcendent Life”, p.416, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Nature, Spring
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.182, Graphic Arts Books

We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting to me.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Interesting, Littles
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.98, Xist Publishing

But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Integrity, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

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