Home > Author > Henry David Thoreau
161 " Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure. "
― Henry David Thoreau , Walden
162 " There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. "
163 " In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not neccessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do. "
164 " We are but faint-hearted crusaders...our expeditions are but tours...half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walks, perchance, in the spirit of stirring adventure, never to return, --prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms...if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk. "
― Henry David Thoreau
165 " What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. "
166 " God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. "
167 " What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. "
168 " Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. "
169 " Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. "
170 " There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of 'expediency.' There is no such thing as sliding up hill. In morals, the only sliders are backsliders. "
― Henry David Thoreau , Slavery in Massachusetts
171 " Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. "
172 " 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 , Walking
173 " 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? "
174 " There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony. "
175 " The silence rings—it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible—I hear the unspeakable. "
― Henry David Thoreau , The Quotable Thoreau
176 " The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks. "
177 " Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself. "
178 " Most men are satisfied if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading. "
179 " I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse. "
180 " I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour. "