Quotes By Henry David Thoreau

Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.

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

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

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.

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

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

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

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.

Live the life you've dreamed.

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.