Henry David Thoreau (Thoreau) was an American philosopher. He was born on July 12, 1817 and died on May 6, 1862. Below are best Henry David Thoreau quotes. See more quotes and Sayings from famous people on MindBootstrap.
Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Nature
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. ~Henry David Thoreau
There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature. ~Henry David Thoreau
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand. ~Henry David Thoreau
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.~Henry David Thoreau
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
It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature. ~Henry David Thoreau
The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected. ~Henry David Thoreau
There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance. ~Henry David Thoreau
There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages. ~Henry David Thoreau
If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ~Henry David Thoreau
Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution. ~Henry David Thoreau
Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? ~Henry David Thoreau
What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party. ~Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Life
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. ~Henry David Thoreau
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ~Henry David Thoreau
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat. ~Henry David Thoreau
What is called genius is the abundance of life and health. ~Henry David Thoreau
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. ~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 a success unexpected in common hours. ~Henry David Thoreau
Live the life you’ve dreamed. ~Henry David Thoreau
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. ~Henry David Thoreau
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. ~Henry David Thoreau
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. ~Henry David Thoreau
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life. ~Henry David Thoreau
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. ~Henry David Thoreau
If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine. ~Henry David Thoreau
So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. ~Henry David Thoreau
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. ~Henry David Thoreau
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life. ~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
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend. ~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
There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold. ~Henry David Thoreau
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business. ~Henry David Thoreau
There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. ~Henry David Thoreau
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. ~Henry David Thoreau
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others? ~Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Wealth
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. ~Henry David Thoreau
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. ~Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Friendship
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance. ~Henry David Thoreau
The language of friendship is not words but meanings. ~Henry David Thoreau
Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams. ~Henry David Thoreau
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend. ~Henry David Thoreau
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. ~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
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. ~Henry David Thoreau
There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone. ~Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Love
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. ~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 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
There is no remedy for love but to love more. ~Henry David Thoreau
May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love! ~Henry David Thoreau
If misery loves company, misery has company enough. ~Henry David Thoreau
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without. ~Henry David Thoreau
Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent. ~Henry David Thoreau
The heart is forever inexperienced. ~Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Simplicity
Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify. ~Henry David Thoreau
Be not simply good – be good for something. ~Henry David Thoreau
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
Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Truth
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear. ~Henry David Thoreau
The lawyer’s truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. ~Henry David Thoreau
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness. ~Henry David Thoreau
The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth. ~Henry David Thoreau
Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing. ~Henry David Thoreau
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. ~Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Wisdom
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. ~Henry David Thoreau
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. ~Henry David Thoreau
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man. ~Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau Quotes About God
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~Henry David Thoreau
Every people have gods to suit their circumstances. ~Henry David Thoreau
God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us. ~Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Success
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. ~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
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him. ~Henry David Thoreau
Related: Success Quotes from Bible
Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Morning
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. ~Henry David Thoreau
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. ~Henry David Thoreau
In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society. ~Henry David Thoreau
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning. ~Henry David Thoreau
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. ~Henry David Thoreau
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