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Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Running

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If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life.

If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Men, Doing You

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

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

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

Henry David Thoreau
Success, Sports, Running

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Running, Dream
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.167, Penguin

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

Henry David Thoreau
Thanksgiving, Running, Sweet
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.373, Penguin

O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

Henry David Thoreau
Thanksgiving, Running, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.228, Jazzybee Verlag

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Running, Dog
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.10, New York Review of Books

And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Dog, Memorable
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.68, Xist Publishing

As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there; some, prodigies and portents; some rarely look up at all; their heads, like the brutes,' are directed toward Earth. Some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable. The world runs to see the panorama, when there is a panorama in the sky which few go to see.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Men, Clouds
Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.29, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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

Henry David Thoreau
Motivational, Running, Long

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Running, Time
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.28, Graphic Arts Books

Whether he sleeps or wakes,--whether he runs or walks,--whether he uses a microscope or a telescope, or his naked eye,--a man never discovers anything, never overtakes anything, or leaves anything behind, but himself. Whatever he says or does, he merely reports himself. If he is in love, he loves; if he is in heaven, he enjoys; if he is in hell, he suffers. It is his condition that determines his locality.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Sleep, Eye
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1871, Delphi Classics

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is - I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Morning, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.395, Penguin

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

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Travel, Moving

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Men, Risk
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.100, Cosimo, Inc.

Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Character, Blow

Nature is a greater and more perfect art, the art of God; though, referred to herself, she is genius; and there is a similarity between her operations and man's art even in the details and trifles. When the overhanging pine drops into the water, by the sun and water, and the wind rubbing it against the shore, its boughs are worn into fantastic shapes, and white and smooth, as if turned in a lathe. Man's art has wisely imitated those forms into which all matter is most inclined to run, as foliage and fruit.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Art, Nature
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU – The Man, The Philosopher & The Trailblazer (Illustrated): Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographical Books & Personal Letters (Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada…)”, p.258, e-artnow

To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine...So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain, running in the face of it.

Henry David Thoreau
Summer, Running, Morning

When the true criminals are running around free, the only honorable place for a decent human being is in prisons.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Criminals, Prison

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Henry David Thoreau
Funny, Life, Running
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.48, Courier Corporation

The Musketaquid, or Grass-ground River, though probably as old as the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have a place in civilized history until the fame of its grassy meadows and fish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it received the other but kindred name of CONCORD from the first plantation on its banks, which appears to have commenced in a spirit of peace and harmony. It will be Grass-ground River as long as grass grows and water runs here; it will be Concord River only while men lead peacable lives on its banks.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Men, Names
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.5, Princeton University Press

If a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Men, Risk
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.111, Xist Publishing

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Distance, Communication
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.91, Cosimo, Inc.

It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Health, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.43, Cosimo, Inc.

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