Quotes By Henry David Thoreau
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
Henry David Thoreau
A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.
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
We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.
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
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
Henry David Thoreau
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.
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
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
Henry David Thoreau
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
Henry David Thoreau
The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.
Henry David Thoreau
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
Henry David Thoreau
There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
Henry David Thoreau
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.
Henry David Thoreau
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.
Henry David Thoreau
If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.
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
To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.
Henry David Thoreau
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
Henry David Thoreau