Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

About Henry David Thoreau:

Henry David Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.
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I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune.

Henry David Thoreau

We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven

Henry David Thoreau

Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.

Henry David Thoreau

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them

Henry David Thoreau

Warum leben wir in solcher Hast, mit solcher Vergeudung von Leben? Wir glauben, Hungers zu sterben, bevor wir hungrig sind. Es heißt, "ein Stich zur rechten Zeit erspart neun andere" - also werden lieber gleich tausend Stiche gemacht, um neun für d...

Henry David Thoreau

Which is the best man to deal with,-he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?

Henry David Thoreau

What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?

Henry David Thoreau

Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.

Henry David Thoreau

If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Henry David Thoreau

It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the ...

Henry David Thoreau

Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let our affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand...Simplify, simplify!

Henry David Thoreau

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in g...

Henry David Thoreau

The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of...

Henry David Thoreau

Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.

Henry David Thoreau

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that yo...

Henry David Thoreau

There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know ...

Henry David Thoreau

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. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak....

Henry David Thoreau

I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society.

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

Morning brings back the heroic ages. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening ho...

Henry David Thoreau

Yet, for my part, I was never usually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary. I am glad to have drunk water so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater’s heaven. I woul...

Henry David Thoreau

Author Bio

  • NameHenry David Thoreau
  • Description1817-1862 American author, abolitionist, naturalist
  • BornJuly 12, 1817
  • DiedMay 6, 1862
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Poet; Philosopher; Essayist; Autobiographer