Henry David Thoreau Quotes



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

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


     “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...”
Henry David Thoreau


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


    “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
Henry David Thoreau


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

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


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

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

     “There is no remedy for love, but to love more.”
Henry David Thoreau


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

     “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
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 he hears, however measured or far away.”
Henry David Thoreau

     “Not till we are completely lost or turned around... do we begin to find ourselves.”
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

    “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
Henry David Thoreau

    “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
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

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

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



     “I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
Henry David Thoreau

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


     “All good things are wild and free.”
Henry David Thoreau

     “Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”
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 language of friendship is not words but meanings.”
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

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


     “I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
Henry David Thoreau

     “Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.”
Henry David Thoreau


     “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.”
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

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


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

    “However mean your life is, meet it and live it.”
Henry David Thoreau


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

     “Things do not change; we change.”
Henry David Thoreau


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


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

     “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
Henry David Thoreau