Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Henry David Thoreau

You must get your living by loving.

Henry David Thoreau
(Life Without Principles, 1863)

What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

Henry David Thoreau

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Henry David Thoreau (Walden - Chapter XVIII: Conclusion, 1854)

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

Henry David Thoreau (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 1849)

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Henry David Thoreau (Walden - Chapter XVI: The Pond in Winter, 1854)

If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.

Henry David Thoreau (Civil Disobedience, 1849)

Once I was part and parcel of nature - now I am observant of her.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1852)

How insufficient is all wisdom without love.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1842)


Thoreau Quote: From the right point of view, every storm and every drop...

From the right point of view, every storm and every drop in it is a rainbow.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1855)

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Henry David Thoreau (Walden - Chapter I: Economy, 1854)

Some of our richest days are those in which no sun shines outwardly, but so much the more a sun shines inwardly.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1850)

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

Henry David Thoreau (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 1849)

Be not simply good - be good for something.

Henry David Thoreau (Familiar Letters)

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1851)

The wisest man preaches no doctrines.

Henry David Thoreau (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 1849)

This world is but a canvas for our imagination.

Henry David Thoreau (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, 1849)

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 (Walden - Chapter XVIII: Conclusion, 1854)

Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.

Henry David Thoreau (Life Without Principles, 1863)

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1838)

Birds do not sing in caves.

Henry David Thoreau (Walden - Chapter I: Economy, 1854)

What is man but a mass of thawing clay?

Henry David Thoreau (Walden - Chapter XVII: Spring, 1854)

The question is not what you look at but how you look and whether you see.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1851)

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

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1840)

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1853)



I have a room all to my self: it is Nature.

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1853)

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

Henry David Thoreau (Walden - Chapter II: Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, 1854)

There is no remedy for love, but to love more.

Henry David Thoreau. (Journal Entry)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Henry David Thoreau (Walden - Chapter I: Economy, 1854)

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

Henry David Thoreau (Letter to Harrison Blake, 1857)

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

Henry David Thoreau (Journal Entry, 1860)

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

Henry David Thoreau (Life Without Principle, 1863)


Henry David Thoreau Biography

Born: July 12, 1817
Died: May 6, 1862

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, abolitionist, poet and philosopher. He is best known as the author of the book Walden. He has also been highly influential in political thought.

Notable Works

The Service (1840)
Paradise Regained (1843)
Reform and the Reformers (1846-1848)
Thomas Carlyle and His Works (1847)
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Walden (1854)
Walking (1861)
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