Henry David Thoreau Quotes

"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."

"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."

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us."

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."

"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."

"An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."

"This world is but a canvas to our imagination."

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."

"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads."

"Things do not change; we change."

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."

"Never look back unless you are planning to go that way."

"I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes."

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."

"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."

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

"Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify."

"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"

"Wealth is the ability to fully experience life."

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

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

"Goodness is the only investment that never fails."

"Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh."

"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."