Author · American · 1817 – 1862 · 233 quotes
It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
Henry David Thoreau
Author · American · 1817 – 1862
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!
They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.
Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?
It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.
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.
I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
