Henry David Thoreau Quotes III

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
Henry David Thoreau

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

Men have become the tools of their tools.
Henry David Thoreau

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
Henry David Thoreau

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
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

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
Henry David Thoreau

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
Henry David Thoreau

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

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.
Henry David Thoreau

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

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
Henry David Thoreau

Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.
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

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

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

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

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
Henry David Thoreau

Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
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

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
Henry David Thoreau

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.
Henry David Thoreau

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

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

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.
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

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

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
Henry David Thoreau

Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau

Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.
Henry David Thoreau

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Henry David Thoreau

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

That government is best which governs least.
Henry David Thoreau

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Henry David Thoreau

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
Henry David Thoreau

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.
Henry David Thoreau

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
Henry David Thoreau

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.
Henry David Thoreau

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.
Henry David Thoreau

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.
Henry David Thoreau

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
Henry David Thoreau

The heart is forever inexperienced.
Henry David Thoreau

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
Henry David Thoreau

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
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

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

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

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau

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

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

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau

The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.
Henry David Thoreau

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
Henry David Thoreau

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

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
Henry David Thoreau