Quotes By Henry David Thoreau

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.

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

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

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

If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.

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

Be not simply good - be good for something.

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

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

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Simplify, simplify.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

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

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.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.

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.

What is once well done is done forever.

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

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.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.