Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A 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 disobedience to an unjust state. Here are some of the inspiring Henry David Thoreau quotes.
Inspirational Henry David Thoreau Quotes
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that 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.”
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”
“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.”
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
“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.”
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
“All good things are wild and free.”
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
“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.”
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
“Things do not change; we change.”
“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”
“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
“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.”
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
“The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.”
“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.”
“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”
“This world is but canvas to our imaginations.”
“It is never too late to give up your prejudices”
“It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.”
“The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.”
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”
“Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
“The path of least resistance leads to crooked rivers and crooked men.”
“Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.”
“Men have become the tools of their tools.”
“We are born as innocents. We are polluted by advice.”
“We are constantly invited to be what we are.”
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
“The heart is forever inexperienced.”
“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.”
“Renew thyself completely each day.”
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
“Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.”
“To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.”
“Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be.”
“Life in us is like the water in a river.”
“Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be.”
“It takes two to speak the truth – one to speak and another to hear.”
“In the long run men only hit what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.”
“The greatest art is to shape the quality of the day. ”
“As to conforming outwardly and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that.”
Henry David Thoreau
“While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them”
“Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.”
“Love must be as much a light as it is a flame.”
“Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.”
“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.”