Top 2798 Quotes & Sayings by Henry David Thoreau - Page 4

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of today.

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

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

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

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.

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.

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

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

An unclean person is universally a slothful one.

Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.

Faith never makes a confession.

Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.

Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.

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

Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.

There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

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

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.

Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.

In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

Being is the great explainer.

The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.

They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!

I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.