Henry David Thoreau

18 quotes

Lived: 1817 – 1862
Era: 19th century
Place: Concord, Massachusetts, USA

Transcendentalist of Walden; advocate of simple living, nature, and civil conscience.

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If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
— Henry David ThoreauCourage
Man’s unquestionable ability to elevate his life by conscious endeavour is among the most encouraging of facts.
— Henry David ThoreauGrowth
Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body.
— Henry David ThoreauSpiritual
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
— Henry David ThoreauSpiritual
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 ThoreauGrowth
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
— Henry David ThoreauGrowth
Things do not change; we change.
— Henry David ThoreauGrowth
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.
— Henry David ThoreauGrowth
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
— Henry David ThoreauSpiritual
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.
— Henry David ThoreauGrowth
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 ThoreauGrowth
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
— Henry David ThoreauGrowth
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
— Henry David ThoreauGrowth
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.
— Henry David ThoreauCourage
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
— Henry David ThoreauCourage
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 ThoreauGrowth
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
— Henry David ThoreauGratitude
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.
— Henry David ThoreauStrength