110+ Henry David Thoreau Quotes On Nature, Civil Disobedience And Solitude

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. 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. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes, and they continue to inspire readers around the world. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Henry David Thoreau on nature, civil disobedience, solitude.

Top 10 Henry David Thoreau Quotes

1. 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.
2. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
3. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined...
4. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.
5. be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
6. What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
7. It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
8. The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover it was never fish that you were after.
9. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
10. There is no remedy for love, but to love more.

Henry David Thoreau Image Quotes

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. — Henry David Thoreau

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. — Henry David Thoreau

There is no remedy for love, but to love more. — Henry David Thoreau

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. — Henry David Thoreau

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. — Henry David Thoreau

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way. — Henry David Thoreau

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. — Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free. — Henry David Thoreau

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. — Henry David Thoreau

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. — Henry David Thoreau

The devil finds work for idle hands. — Henry David Thoreau

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune. — Henry David Thoreau

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds. — Henry David Thoreau

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend. — Henry David Thoreau

The bluebird carries the sky on his back. — Henry David Thoreau

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend. — Henry David Thoreau

The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind. — Henry David Thoreau

City life is millions of people being lonesome together. — Henry David Thoreau

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Short Quotes

• We should come home from adventures and perils and discoveries with new experiences and character.
• An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
• Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
• Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.
• The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.
• Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
• Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing.
• Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.
• When we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.
• All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Nature

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 is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand. — Henry David Thoreau

The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures. — Henry David Thoreau

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. — Henry David Thoreau

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary. — Henry David Thoreau

We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain. — Henry David Thoreau

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. — Henry David Thoreau

A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. — Henry David Thoreau

One must maintain a little bittle of summer, even in the middle of winter. — Henry David Thoreau

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Civil Disobedience

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? — Henry David Thoreau

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

. . . we should be men first, and subjects afterward. — Henry David Thoreau

I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. — Henry David Thoreau

Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. — Henry David Thoreau

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. — Henry David Thoreau

Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn. — Henry David Thoreau

Voting for the right is doing nothing for it. — Henry David Thoreau

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. — Henry David Thoreau

That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Solitude

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. — Henry David Thoreau

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. — Henry David Thoreau

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. — Henry David Thoreau

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. — Henry David Thoreau

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. — 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

I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. — Henry David Thoreau

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. — Henry David Thoreau

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. — Henry David Thoreau

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Government

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts -- a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments. — Henry David Thoreau

All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. — Henry David Thoreau

That government is best which governs least. — Henry David Thoreau

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Henry David Thoreau

It is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, ina government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone. — Henry David Thoreau

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. — Henry David Thoreau

Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels? — Henry David Thoreau

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. — Henry David Thoreau

But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. — Henry David Thoreau

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. — Henry David Thoreau

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

The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond. — Henry David Thoreau

Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads. — Henry David Thoreau

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. — Henry David Thoreau

Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame. — 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

Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit. — Henry David Thoreau

You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure. — Henry David Thoreau

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. — Henry David Thoreau

Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Simplicity

Simplify, simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail. — Henry David Thoreau

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! — Henry David Thoreau

We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without. — Henry David Thoreau

Simplicity is the law of Nature for man as well as for flowers. When the tapestry (corolla) of the nuptial bed (calyx) is excessive, luxuriant, it is unproductive. The fertile flowers are single, not double. — Henry David Thoreau

Some simple dishes recommend themselves to our imaginations as well as palates. — Henry David Thoreau

However mean your life is, meet it and live it. — Henry David Thoreau

The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must bestripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living laid for a foundation. — Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! — Henry David Thoreau

I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Friendship

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. — Henry David Thoreau

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend. — Henry David Thoreau

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance. — Henry David Thoreau

To say that a man is your Friend means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. — Henry David Thoreau

It often happens that a man develops a deeper love and friendship with his pet cat or dog than he does with most of the other humans in his life. — Henry David Thoreau

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this? — Henry David Thoreau

I love you not as something private and personal, which is my own, but as something universal and worthy of love which I have found. — Henry David Thoreau

Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act. — Henry David Thoreau

How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we might go and meet their ideal cousins. — Henry David Thoreau

Friendship is evanescent in every man's experience, and remembered like heat lightning in past summers. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Life

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this. — Henry David Thoreau

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

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. — Henry David Thoreau

I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. — Henry David Thoreau

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. — Henry David Thoreau

Simplify your life. Don't waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant. Don't burden yourself with possessions. Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have. Don't destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present. Simplify! — 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 life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau

The devil finds work for idle hands. — 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

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Individualism

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals. — Henry David Thoreau

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes split into quarters - which grind on each other. Not only individuals but states have thus a confirmed dyspepsia. — Henry David Thoreau

Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. — Henry David Thoreau

Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world. — Henry David Thoreau

A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service. — Henry David Thoreau

I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor. — Henry David Thoreau

Men are in the main alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly quite as well as another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. — Henry David Thoreau

Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them. — Henry David Thoreau

It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment. If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps. — Henry David Thoreau

This is one of those instances in which the individual genius is found to consent, as indeed it always does, at last, with the universal. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Animals

I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals. — Henry David Thoreau

We slander the hyena; man is the fiercest and cruelest animal. — Henry David Thoreau

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground. — Henry David Thoreau

Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food — Henry David Thoreau

The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams. — Henry David Thoreau

When I consider that the noble animals have been exterminated here - the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc, etc - I cannot but feel as I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country. — Henry David Thoreau

It often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog than to any human being. — Henry David Thoreau

I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me. I saw where it was born deep down under feathers and fur, or condemned for a while to roam four-footed among the brambles,I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner and swore that I would be faithful. — Henry David Thoreau

A kitten is so flexible that she is almost double; the hind parts are equivalent to another kitten with which the fore part plays. She does not discover that her tail belongs to her till you tread upon it. — Henry David Thoreau

I learned from my two years' experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one's necessary food; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Reflection

The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode. — Henry David Thoreau

You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. — Henry David Thoreau

It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected; too faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself. — Henry David Thoreau

Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Live

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. — Henry David Thoreau

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. — Henry David Thoreau

Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live. — Henry David Thoreau

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. — Henry David Thoreau

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. — Henry David Thoreau

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world. — Henry David Thoreau

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. — Henry David Thoreau

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. — Henry David Thoreau

find your eternity in each moment — Henry David Thoreau

Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself. So live the life you imagined. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes About True

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend. — Henry David Thoreau

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. — Henry David Thoreau

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. — Henry David Thoreau

The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but last fruits also. — Henry David Thoreau

The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched. — Henry David Thoreau

To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge. — Henry David Thoreau

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness. — Henry David Thoreau

Sobriety, severity, and self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality. — Henry David Thoreau

Nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind than medicine. Quackery is a thing universal, and universally successful. In this case it becomes literally true that no imposition is too great for the credulity of men. — Henry David Thoreau

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious. — Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Famous Quotes And Sayings

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. — Henry David Thoreau

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. — Henry David Thoreau

There is no remedy for love, but to love more. — Henry David Thoreau

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. — Henry David Thoreau

Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty, as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds. — Henry David Thoreau

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way. — Henry David Thoreau

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. — Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free. — Henry David Thoreau

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. — Henry David Thoreau

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. — Henry David Thoreau

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. — Henry David Thoreau

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise. — Henry David Thoreau

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong. — Henry David Thoreau

The devil finds work for idle hands. — Henry David Thoreau

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune. — Henry David Thoreau

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds. — Henry David Thoreau

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent. — 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

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. — Henry David Thoreau

The fire is the main comfort of the camp, whether in summer or winter, and is about as ample at one season as at another. It is as well for cheerfulness as for warmth and dryness. — Henry David Thoreau

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend. — Henry David Thoreau

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? — Henry David Thoreau

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now. — Henry David Thoreau

The bluebird carries the sky on his back. — Henry David Thoreau

Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers. — Henry David Thoreau

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend. — Henry David Thoreau

It is not worth while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar. — Henry David Thoreau

The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind. — Henry David Thoreau

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. — Henry David Thoreau

In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?' — Henry David Thoreau

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. — Henry David Thoreau

I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees. — 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

City life is millions of people being lonesome together. — Henry David Thoreau

The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. — Henry David Thoreau

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. — Henry David Thoreau

The soul grows by subtraction, not addition. — Henry David Thoreau

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams. — Henry David Thoreau

As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. — Henry David Thoreau

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before. — Henry David Thoreau

Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather. — Henry David Thoreau

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience. — Henry David Thoreau

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. — Henry David Thoreau

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. — Henry David Thoreau

Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? — Henry David Thoreau

How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets. — Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. — Henry David Thoreau

Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit. — Henry David Thoreau

We are all of us more or less active physiognomists. — Henry David Thoreau

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature --if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you --know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse. — Henry David Thoreau

This world is but a canvas to our imagination. — Henry David Thoreau

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. — Henry David Thoreau

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? — Henry David Thoreau

In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial. — Henry David Thoreau

Where shall we look for standard English, but to the words of a standard man? — Henry David Thoreau

Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes? — Henry David Thoreau

When a soldier is hit by a cannonball, rags are as becoming as purple. — Henry David Thoreau

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. — Henry David Thoreau

Life Lessons by Henry David Thoreau

1. Henry David Thoreau's life lessons emphasize the importance of living a meaningful life based on simplicity and self-reliance.
2. He encourages us to live deliberately, to be mindful of our actions, and to strive for greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
3. He teaches us to appreciate the beauty of nature, to be content with what we have, and to always strive for a life of purpose and integrity.