Henry David Thoreau

"What I began by reading, I must finish by acting."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought and attended to my answer."

- 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. 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

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The way you spend Christmas is far more important than how much."

- 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 foundations under them."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Truths and roses have thorns about them."

- Henry David Thoreau

""Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.""

- Henry David Thoreau

"I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude."

- Henry David Thoreau

"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."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"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."

- Henry David Thoreau

"One must maintain a little bit of summer, even in the middle of winter."

- 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

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that 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."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Success comes to those who are too busy to look for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

"In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts…"

- Henry David Thoreau

"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment."

- 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

"Youth gets together with their materials to build a bridge to the moon or maybe a palace on earth; then in middle age they decide to build a woodshed with them instead."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days..."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I am grateful for what I am and have. My Thanksgiving is perpetual."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves."

- Henry David Thoreau

"It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born."

- Henry David Thoreau

"It takes two to speak the truth – one to speak, and another to hear."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Friends…they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams."

- Henry David Thoreau

"What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter’s day?"

- 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

"Success finds the busy ones."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Love must be as much a light as it is a flame."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"All good things are wild and free."

- 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

"In Wildness is the preservation of the world."

- 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

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth."

- 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

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

"You cannot perceive beauty, but with a serene mind."

- Henry David Thoreau

"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

"“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

"Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me."

- Henry David Thoreau

"October is the month of painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The sweet calm sunshine of October, now warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold the purple oak-leaf falls."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit."

- Henry David Thoreau

"October is the month for painted leaves…. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness."

- Henry David Thoreau

"What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?"

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest."

- Henry David Thoreau

"you can walk with love and reverence."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Write while the heat is in you."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that 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."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Dreams are the touchstones of our characters."

- Henry David Thoreau

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you've always imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Humility, like the darkness, reveals the heavenly lights."

- Henry David Thoreau

"October turned my maple leaves to gold; the most are gone now; here and there one lingers; soon these will slip from the twig's end, bearing their moisture into the earth."

- Henry David Thoreau

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I believe I’ll go fishing."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Everyone should believe in something. I believe I’ll go fishing."

- Henry David Thoreau

"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment."

- Henry David Thoreau

"It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?"

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"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

"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion."

- Henry David Thoreau

"You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might."

- Henry David Thoreau

""Things do not change; we change.""

- Henry David Thoreau

"Wealth is the ability to fully experience life."

- 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

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters."

- Henry David Thoreau

"In August, the large masses of berries, which, when in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and broke their tender limbs."

- Henry David Thoreau

"In August, the large masses of berries, which, when in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and broke the tender limbs."

- Henry David Thoreau

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all."

- Henry David Thoreau

"It takes two to speak the truth—one to speak and another to hear."

- 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

"There are two seasons when the leaves are in their glory, their green and perfect youth in June and this their ripe old age."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Goodness is the only investment that never fails."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I have a real genius for staying at home."

- Henry David Thoreau

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed... Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

- Henry David Thoreau

"“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”"

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- 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

"The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined"

- Henry David Thoreau

"The most stupendous scenery ceases to be sublime when it becomes distinct, or in other words limited, and the imagination is no longer encouraged to exaggerate it. The actual height and breadth of a mountain or a waterfall are always ridiculously small; they are imagined only that content us."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation . . . . A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."

- Henry David Thoreau

"“Success comes to those who are too busy to look for it.”"

- Henry David Thoreau

"It is dry, hazy June weather. We are more of the earth, farther from heaven these days."

- Henry David Thoreau

""I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.""

- Henry David Thoreau

"The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The language of friendship is not words but meanings."

- Henry David Thoreau

"There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"We can never have enough of nature."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Live the life you’ve dreamed."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I have great faith in a seed."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I stand in awe of my body."

- 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."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams."

- 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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."

- Henry David Thoreau

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of each."

- Henry David Thoreau

"What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Wildness is the preservation of the World."

- Henry David Thoreau

"We can never have enough of Nature."

- Henry David Thoreau

"In wildness is the preservation of the world."

- Henry David Thoreau

"What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Morning is when I am awake, and there is a dawn in me."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Is not the poet bound to write his own biography? Is there any other work for him but a good journal? We do not wish to know how his imaginary hero, but how he, the actual hero, lived from day to day."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love of it."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The 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

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance."

- 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

"You must not only aim right but draw the bow with all your might."

- Henry David Thoreau

"People who concentrate on their tasks rather than searching for success typically achieve their goals, particularly when they work in unison."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The perception of beauty is a moral test."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The true price of anything you do is the amount of time you exchange for it."

- 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

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

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"The bluebird carries the sky on his back."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There, a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself. I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this."

- Henry David Thoreau

"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Every child begins the world again."

- Henry David Thoreau

"How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health!"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I have learned this at least by my experiment: that 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."

- Henry David Thoreau

"If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment."

- 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

"Things do not change; we change."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you’ll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books."

- Henry David Thoreau

"It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning."

- Henry David Thoreau

"No one is as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm."

- 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

"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each."

- Henry David Thoreau

""That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.""

- Henry David Thoreau

"It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, daughter. Live the life you have imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

- Henry David Thoreau

"That government is best which governs least."

- Henry David Thoreau

"How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Live your beliefs, and you can turn the world around."

- Henry David Thoreau

"All good things are wild and free"

- Henry David Thoreau

"We can never have enough of nature"

- Henry David Thoreau

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams."

- 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. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"What is called genius is the abundance of life and health."

- Henry David Thoreau

""Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.""

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"The eye is the jewel of the body."

- 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

"October is the month for painted leaves."

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Never look back unless planning to go."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Simplify your life; focus purely on essentials."

- Henry David Thoreau