Top 500 Henry David Thoreau Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “The Library is a wilderness of books.”

— Henry David Thoreau

152. “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”

— Henry David Thoreau

153. “The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears to hear it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

154. “I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie on the earth.”

— Henry David Thoreau

155. “The eye is the jewel of the body.”

— Henry David Thoreau

156. “Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

157. “Do not despair of your life. You have force enough to overcome your obstacles.”

— Henry David Thoreau

158. “The universe is wider than our views of it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

159. “Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

161. “He who owns little is little owned.”

— Henry David Thoreau

162. “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

— Henry David Thoreau

163. “Maturity is when all of your mirrors turn into windows.”

— Henry David Thoreau

164. “Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.”

— Henry David Thoreau

165. “City life is millions of people being lonesome together.”

— Henry David Thoreau

166. “Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping.”

— Henry David Thoreau

167. “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.”

— Henry David Thoreau

168. “Let go of the past and go for the future.”

— Henry David Thoreau

169. “The language of friendship is not words but meanings.”

— Henry David Thoreau

170. “None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”

— Henry David Thoreau

171. “Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well.”

— Henry David Thoreau

172. “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

— Henry David Thoreau

173. “There is only one path to Heaven. On Earth, we call it Love.”

— Henry David Thoreau

174. “Every man must walk to the beat of his own drummer.”

— Henry David Thoreau

175. “If I am not I, who will be?”

— Henry David Thoreau

176. “Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.”

— Henry David Thoreau

177. “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

178. “Men spend the best parts of their lives earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

179. “By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

181. “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

182. “Those who work much do not work hard.”

— Henry David Thoreau

183. “Nothing can be more useful to you than a determination not to be hurried.”

— Henry David Thoreau

184. “Men are born to succeed, not to fail.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

186. “To have made even one person’s life a little better, that is to succeed.”

— Henry David Thoreau

187. “You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind.”

— Henry David Thoreau

188. “Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.”

— Henry David Thoreau

189. “One should be always on the trail of one’s own deepest nature. For it is the fearless living out of your own essential nature that connects you to the Divine.”

— Henry David Thoreau

190. “Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”

— Henry David Thoreau

191. “The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind.”

— Henry David Thoreau

192. “Read not the Times, read the Eternities.”

— Henry David Thoreau

193. “Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

— Henry David Thoreau

194. “We can never have enough of Nature.”

— Henry David Thoreau

195. “It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

197. “What is once well done is done forever.”

— Henry David Thoreau

198. “Renew thyself completely each day.”

— Henry David Thoreau

199. “If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.”

— Henry David Thoreau

200. “Wherever you have planted a seed, I am prepared to expect wonders.”

— Henry David Thoreau