Authors - Henry David Thoreau
Brief Biography
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. - Wikipedia
Quotes by Henry David ThoreauBrowse all of these
Quote 1312by Anonymous on 12/01/2011
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.
Quote 1440by Anonymous on 13/01/2011
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
Quote 1499by Anonymous on 14/01/2011
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
Quote 1528by Anonymous on 14/01/2011
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts; but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates.
Quote 3193by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
I went out to the country so i could examine the simple things in life.
Quote 3365by Anonymous on 05/02/2011
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.
Quote 3507by Anonymous on 06/02/2011
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Quote 3519by Anonymous on 06/02/2011
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Quote 3941by Anonymous on 12/02/2011
It is not what you look at, but what you see.
Quote 4182by Anonymous on 16/02/2011
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Quote 4297by Anonymous on 18/02/2011
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Quote 4493by Anonymous on 22/02/2011
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
Quote 4529by Anonymous on 22/02/2011
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
Quote 5168by Anonymous on 28/05/2011
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
Quote 5429by Anonymous on 29/06/2011
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.
Quote 5507by Anonymous on 08/07/2011
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Quote 5585by Anonymous on 24/07/2011
It is never too late to give up your prejudices.
Quote 6308by Anonymous on 18/09/2011
He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.
Quote 6601by Anonymous on 01/10/2011
Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man's nobler faculties.
Quote 6969by Anonymous on 14/10/2011
The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
Quote 7196by Anonymous on 27/10/2011
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.
Quote 7292by Anonymous on 02/11/2011
Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.
Quote 7746by Anonymous on 03/02/2012
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Quote 7798by Anonymous on 15/02/2012
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Quote 10185by Anonymous on 18/09/2012
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
Quote 11167by Anonymous on 29/11/2012
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
Quote 11674by Anonymous on 15/01/2013
What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.
Quote 11746by Anonymous on 19/01/2013
In our society leaving baby with Daddy is just one step above leaving the kids to be raised by wolves or apes.
Quote 11777by Anonymous on 22/01/2013
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Quote 11891by Anonymous on 30/01/2013
What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.
Quote 11931by Anonymous on 01/02/2013
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
Quote 12069by Anonymous on 26/02/2013
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Quote 12107by Anonymous on 02/03/2013
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.
Quote 12251by Anonymous on 20/03/2013
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Quote 12854by Anonymous on 29/05/2013
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.
Quote 12865by Anonymous on 29/05/2013
It's hard to beat somebody when they don't give up
Quote 12917by Anonymous on 02/06/2013
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
Quote 12936by Anonymous on 04/06/2013
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.
Quote 13107by Anonymous on 21/06/2013
We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.
Quote 13162by Anonymous on 25/06/2013
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
Quote 13166by Anonymous on 26/06/2013
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Quote 13283by Anonymous on 05/07/2013
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.
Quote 13521by Anonymous on 31/07/2013
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
Quote 13592by Anonymous on 08/08/2013
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Quote 13612by Anonymous on 09/08/2013
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
Quote 13706by Anonymous on 25/08/2013
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
Quote 13734by Anonymous on 27/08/2013
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
Quote 13910by Anonymous on 18/09/2013
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
