Top 500 Henry David Thoreau Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”

— Henry David Thoreau

52. “When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.”

— Henry David Thoreau

53. “The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.”

— Henry David Thoreau

54. “What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?”

— Henry David Thoreau

55. “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”

— Henry David Thoreau

56. “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.”

— Henry David Thoreau

57. “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”

— Henry David Thoreau

58. “All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.”

— Henry David Thoreau

59. “It is never too late to give up our prejudices.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

61. “The rule is to carry as little as possible.”

— Henry David Thoreau

62. “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

63. “Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”

— Henry David Thoreau

64. “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”

— Henry David Thoreau

65. “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”

— Henry David Thoreau

66. “As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

— Henry David Thoreau

67. “How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”

— Henry David Thoreau

68. “Oh to reach the point of death and realize one has not lived at all.”

— Henry David Thoreau

69. “Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”

— Henry David Thoreau

70. “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”

— Henry David Thoreau

71. “I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”

— Henry David Thoreau

72. “I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man.”

— Henry David Thoreau

73. “In a world of peace and love, music would be the universal language.”

— Henry David Thoreau

74. “Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and through her, God.”

— Henry David Thoreau

75. “Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.”

— Henry David Thoreau

76. “I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in it’s gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.”

— Henry David Thoreau

77. “That government is best which governs least.”

— Henry David Thoreau

78. “The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover it was never fish that you were after.”

— Henry David Thoreau

79. “Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”

— Henry David Thoreau

80. “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

81. “The biggest happiness is when at the end of the year you feel better than at the beginning.”

— Henry David Thoreau

82. “Methinks that the moment my legs began to move, my thoughts began to flow.”

— Henry David Thoreau

83. “It’s the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.”

— Henry David Thoreau

84. “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”

— Henry David Thoreau

85. “Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

88. “Things do not change; we change.”

— Henry David Thoreau

89. “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.”

— Henry David Thoreau

90. “Do not despair of life. Think of the fox, prowling in a winter night to satisfy his hunger. His race survives; I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide.”

— Henry David Thoreau

91. “It often happens that a man develops a deeper love and friendship with his pet cat or dog than he does with most of the other humans in his life.”

— Henry David Thoreau

92. “Do not suffer your life to be taken by newspapers.”

— Henry David Thoreau

93. “Every child begins the world again.”

— Henry David Thoreau

94. “The sun is but a morning star.”

— Henry David Thoreau

95. “Of what significance are the things you can forget.”

— Henry David Thoreau

96. “To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.”

— Henry David Thoreau

97. “Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.”

— Henry David Thoreau

98. “A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.”

— Henry David Thoreau

99. “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?”

— Henry David Thoreau

100. “When you knock, ask to see God – none of the servants.”

— Henry David Thoreau