Henry David Thoreau

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July 15, 2020

Name: Henry David Thoreau
Born: 07/12/1817
Died: 05/06/1862 (44 years old)

Henry David Thoreau (see name pronunciation; July 12, 1817– May 6, 1862) was an American essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay “Civil Disobedience” (originally published as “Resistance to Civil Government”), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Birth Name: David Henry Thoreau

Alias: David Henry Thoreau

Birth Place: Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.

Death Place: Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.

Source: Wikipedia

Henry David Thoreau quotes :

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
Henry David Thoreau

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
Henry David Thoreau

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.
Henry David Thoreau

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
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 price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Henry David Thoreau

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Henry David Thoreau

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
Henry David Thoreau

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Henry David Thoreau

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

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
Henry David Thoreau

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
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

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.
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

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David Thoreau

The perception of beauty is a moral test.
Henry David Thoreau

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
Henry David Thoreau

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Henry David Thoreau

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.
Henry David Thoreau

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

The man who goes alone can start today but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
Henry David Thoreau

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.
Henry David Thoreau

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.
Henry David Thoreau

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

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
Henry David Thoreau

That government is best which governs least.
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 language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
Henry David Thoreau

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
Henry David Thoreau

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

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
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

Things do not change we change.
Henry David Thoreau

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.
Henry David Thoreau

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
Henry David Thoreau

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
Henry David Thoreau

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
Henry David Thoreau

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

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

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

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
Henry David Thoreau

Faith never makes a confession.
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

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Henry David Thoreau

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
Henry David Thoreau

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

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

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.
Henry David Thoreau

I had three chairs in my house one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
Henry David Thoreau

What is human warfare but just this an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.
Henry David Thoreau

God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.
Henry David Thoreau

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
Henry David Thoreau

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau

Be not simply good - be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau

As for doing good that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
Henry David Thoreau

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
Henry David Thoreau

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

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
Henry David Thoreau

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
Henry David Thoreau

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Henry David Thoreau

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
Henry David Thoreau

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.
Henry David Thoreau

Being is the great explainer.
Henry David Thoreau

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

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
Henry David Thoreau

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
Henry David Thoreau