Henry David Thoreau famous quotes

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

#Life #Business #Simple

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Inspirational #Motivational #Positive

be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Inspirational #Being Yourself #Real

When it's time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Motivational #Death

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

#Love #Inspirational #Life

You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Famous Inspirational #Might #Bows

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Love #Break Up #Marriage

The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover it was never fish that you were after.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Fishing #Tragedy #Life Is

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

#Inspirational #Uplifting #Sports

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

#Motivational #Courage #Regret

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

#Good Morning #Nature #Famous Inspirational

I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in it's gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Destiny #Animal #Race

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

#Money #Done #Idle

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Nature #Believe #Yield

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

#Wisdom #Travel #Character

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

#Life #Success #Inspiration

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

#Friendship #Nature #Integrity

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

#Perseverance #Disappointment #Self Esteem

To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Thinking #Wish #Path

It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Believe #Men #Long

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Writing #Creativity #Iron

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Beautiful #Art #Design

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

#Men #Literature #Common

In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Men #Materials #Manhood

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Love #Life #Trust

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Life #Peace #Simple

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

#Inspirational #Cheating #Integrity

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Funny #Wisdom #Truth

I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Strength #Fashion #Individuality

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Good Morning #Nature #Good Day

The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Stars #Dust #Rainbow

Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Air #Doe #Breathe

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Life #Inspiration #Hero

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Music #Loneliness #Being Single

Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Sweet #Justice #Musical

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

#Inspirational #Opportunity #Believe In Yourself

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Inspirational #Giving Up #Learning

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

#Change #Workout #Thoughtful

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Life #Thinking #Clouds

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

#Life #Song #Men

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Commitment #Opportunity #Insperational

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

#Change #Positive #Happiness

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

#Love #Inspirational #Money

Truths and roses have thorns about them.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Flower #Rose #Literature

One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Inspirational #Life #Generosity

Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Motivational Sports #Men #Body

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Running #Real #Believe

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

#Courage #Fall #Knowledge

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Writing #Long #Needs

One must maintain a little bittle of summer, even in the middle of winter.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Summer #Winter #Littles

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

#Inspirational #Life #Success

The Friend asks no return but that his Friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Friendship #Dream #Return

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

#Love #Hypocrisy #Literature

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

#Inspirational #Life #Birthday

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Health #Sick #Healthy

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Love #Sad #Literature

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

#Success #Witty #Perseverance

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

#Happiness #Success #Hope

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

#Wise #Wisdom #Men

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

#Best Friend #I Miss You #Missing You

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

#Love #Appreciate #Path

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

#Motivational #Success #Congratulations

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Determination #Sleep #Dark

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

#Men #Sky #Flying

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

#Freedom #Stupid #Mind

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

#Inspirational #Life #Time

In wildness is the preservation of the world.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#World #Transcendentalism #Wilderness

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

#Nature #Travel #Hands

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

#Witty #Work #Humorous

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

#Empathy #Political #Listening

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

#Life #Positive #Luxury

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Time #Memories #Aging

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

#Life #Money #Simplicity

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

#Nature #Science #Men

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

#Inspirational #Optimistic #Expectations

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Love #Inspiring #Peace

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Women #Sisterhood #Media

The heart is forever inexperienced.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Heart #Forever #Literature

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

#Inspirational #Life #Health

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

#Happiness #Success #Hope

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

#Happiness #Depression #Faith

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Years #Printing #Century

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Time #Fishing #Streams

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Clothes #Simplicity #Environmental

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

#Friendship #Home #Two

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

#Spiritual #Money #Simplicity

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

#Peace #Powerful #Hammers

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

#Writing #Achievement #Done

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Wise #Reading #Book

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.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Men #Lists #Towns

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

#Life #Beauty #Perception

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Fashion #Teenage #Laughing

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Nature #Cost #Curtains

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

#Believe #Doubt #Literature

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

#Mean #Technology #Toys

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

#Life #Friendship #Success

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Sheep #Culture #Literature

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
-- Henry David Thoreau

#Respect #Law #Literature

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

#Happiness #Wisdom #Money