Henry David Thoreau Quotes
Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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

Related topics: Sad Feeling-Down Wisdom Life Human-Nature Psychology Spiritual

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

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

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants.
The question is: What are we busy about?
- Henry David Thoreau

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.
- 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

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

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

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

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

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal,
and then leap in the dark to our success.
- Henry David Thoreau

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.
Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
- Henry David Thoreau

Live the life you've dreamed.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

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

If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams
and endeavor to leave the life which you have imagined,
you will you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- 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

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

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed,
and in such desperate enterprises?
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

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

If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

All endeavor calls for the ability
to tramp the last mile,
shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.
The fight to the finish spirit is the one...
characteristic we must posses
if we are to face the future as finishers.
- Henry David Thoreau

Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations.
For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
- Henry David Thoreau

It is what a man thinks of himself
that really determines his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau

Do not hire a man who does your work for money,
but him who does it for love of it.
- Henry David Thoreau

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important
as what you become by achieving your goals.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

How many things there are concerning which we might
well deliberate whether we had better know them.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
- Henry David Thoreau

The youth gets together his materials
to build a bridge to the moon,
or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth,
and, at length, the middle-aged man
concludes to build a woodshed with them.
- Henry David Thoreau

There is no odor so bad as that
which arises from goodness tainted.
- Henry David Thoreau

In human intercourse the tragedy begins,
not when there is misunderstanding about words,
but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau

Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air.
They are where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- 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

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man loses 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

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

Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
- Henry David Thoreau

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right.
Men will believe what they see.
- 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

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

Simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau

Many men go fishing all of their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
- Henry David Thoreau

To have done anything just for money
is to have been truly idle.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

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

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

Things do not change; we change.
- Henry David Thoreau

I have always been regretting that
I was not as wise as the day I was born.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau

The universe is wider than our views of it.
- Henry David Thoreau

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
- Henry David Thoreau

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
- Henry David Thoreau

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- 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

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

I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,
and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau

All this worldly wisdom was once
the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
- Henry David Thoreau

What is once well done is done forever.
- Henry David Thoreau

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