Quotes By Henry David Thoreau

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know 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.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

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 people have gods to suit their circumstances.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

Being is the great explainer.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

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.

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.

How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.