Henry David Thoreau

Find the best quotes, maxims and aphorisms of Henry David Thoreau

Biography : American essayist, poet and philosopher.
Born: 1817 - Died: 1862
Period:
19th century
Place of birth: United States

United States

Henry David Thoreau - Quotes

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
Henry David Thoreau

Live the life you've dreamed.
Henry David Thoreau

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
Henry David Thoreau

nature

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
Henry David Thoreau

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
Henry David Thoreau

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
Henry David Thoreau

water

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau

simplicity

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

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
Henry David Thoreau

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

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David Thoreau

enthusiasm

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.
Henry David Thoreau

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
Henry David Thoreau

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
Henry David Thoreau

God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.
Henry David Thoreau

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
Henry David Thoreau

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.
Henry David Thoreau

They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.
Henry David Thoreau

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
Henry David Thoreau

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Henry David Thoreau

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
Henry David Thoreau

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

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.
Henry David Thoreau

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.
Henry David Thoreau

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.
Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
Henry David Thoreau

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

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
Henry David Thoreau

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Henry David Thoreau

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