Henry David Thoreau Quotes
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451. “Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.”

— Henry David Thoreau

452. “Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.”

— Henry David Thoreau

453. “The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secrets of things.”

— Henry David Thoreau

454. “Every sunset I witness inspires me with the desire to go to West as distant and as fair as that which the sun goes down. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.”

— Henry David Thoreau

455. “Trees indeed have hearts.”

— Henry David Thoreau

456. “Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.”

— Henry David Thoreau

457. “Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up.”

— Henry David Thoreau

458. “Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?”

— Henry David Thoreau

459. “Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.”

— Henry David Thoreau

460. “Life in us is like the water in a river.”

— Henry David Thoreau

461. “It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.”

— Henry David Thoreau

462. “Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.”

— Henry David Thoreau

463. “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.”

— Henry David Thoreau

464. “We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.”

— Henry David Thoreau

465. “I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.”

— Henry David Thoreau

466. “Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons.”

— Henry David Thoreau

467. “Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.”

— Henry David Thoreau

468. “Who hears the fishes when they cry?”

— Henry David Thoreau

469. “Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.”

— Henry David Thoreau

470. “Fire is the most tolerable third party.”

— Henry David Thoreau

471. “The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.”

— Henry David Thoreau

472. “A man may esteem himself happy when that which is his food is also his medicine.”

— Henry David Thoreau

473. “Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.”

— Henry David Thoreau

474. “Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. “Tell the tailors,” said he, “to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch.” His companion’s prayer is forgotten.”

— Henry David Thoreau

475. “I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.”

— Henry David Thoreau

476. “The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow,-one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.”

— Henry David Thoreau

477. “The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.”

— Henry David Thoreau

478. “One must maintain a little bittle of summer, even in the middle of winter.”

— Henry David Thoreau

479. “I suspect that, if you should go to the end of the world, you would find somebody there going farther, as if just starting for home at sundown, and having a last word before he drove off.”

— Henry David Thoreau

480. “No man ever followed his genius til it misled him.”

— Henry David Thoreau

481. “Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning’s flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself.”

— Henry David Thoreau

482. “What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own.”

— Henry David Thoreau

483. “The life without men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?”

— Henry David Thoreau

484. “You never gain something but that you lose something.”

— Henry David Thoreau

485. “Live free, child of the mist,- and with respect to knowledge we are allchildren of the mist.”

— Henry David Thoreau

486. “I am a majority of one.”

— Henry David Thoreau

487. “It is as hard to see one’s self as to look backwards without turning around.”

— Henry David Thoreau

488. “The indescribable innocence of and beneficence of Nature,-of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter,-such health, such cheer, they afford forever!”

— Henry David Thoreau

489. “This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.”

— Henry David Thoreau

490. “It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always. The conscience really does not, and ought not to monopolizethe whole of our lives, any more than the heart or the head. It is as liable to disease as any other part.”

— Henry David Thoreau

491. “Wherever men have lived, there is a story to be told.”

— Henry David Thoreau

492. “At death our friends and relatives either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart farther from us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.”

— Henry David Thoreau

493. “Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment.”

— Henry David Thoreau

494. “The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must bestripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living laid for a foundation.”

— Henry David Thoreau

495. “Be it life or death, we crave only reality.”

— Henry David Thoreau

496. “The man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.”

— Henry David Thoreau

497. “I have great faith in a seed.”

— Henry David Thoreau

498. “What exercise is to the body, employment is to the mind and morals.”

— Henry David Thoreau

499. “Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau