Top 500 Henry David Thoreau Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence.”

— Henry David Thoreau

252. “I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints.”

— Henry David Thoreau

253. “As I love nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and winter, I love thee, my Friend.”

— Henry David Thoreau

254. “For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself.”

— Henry David Thoreau

255. “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.”

— Henry David Thoreau

256. “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”

— Henry David Thoreau

257. “I had but three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship; three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up.”

— Henry David Thoreau

258. “Such is beauty ever,-neither here nor there, now nor then,-neither in Rome nor in Athens, but wherever there is a soul to admire.”

— Henry David Thoreau

259. “All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.”

— Henry David Thoreau

260. “It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.”

— Henry David Thoreau

261. “We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor.”

— Henry David Thoreau

262. “He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.”

— Henry David Thoreau

263. “You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.”

— Henry David Thoreau

264. “Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated. It is the only assured tone. There are in it such strains as far surpass anyman’s faith in the loftiness of his destiny. Things are to be learned which it will be worth the while to learn.”

— Henry David Thoreau

265. “Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.”

— Henry David Thoreau

266. “I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.”

— Henry David Thoreau

267. “The world is a strange place for a playhouse to stand within it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

268. “There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand. I love a broad margin to my life.”

— Henry David Thoreau

269. “If Nature is our mother, then God is our father.”

— Henry David Thoreau

270. “The only sin in the world is ignorance.”

— Henry David Thoreau

271. “As if there were safety in stupidity alone.”

— Henry David Thoreau

272. “Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.”

— Henry David Thoreau

273. “Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you’ll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you’ll be in as much trouble as I am!”

— Henry David Thoreau

274. “The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.”

— Henry David Thoreau

275. “Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”

— Henry David Thoreau

276. “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers.”

— Henry David Thoreau

277. “The only danger in Friendship is that it will end.”

— Henry David Thoreau

278. “Sweep away the clutter of things that complicate our lives.”

— Henry David Thoreau

279. “I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil’s attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth.”

— Henry David Thoreau

280. “The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.”

— Henry David Thoreau

281. “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.”

— Henry David Thoreau

282. “I have no designs on society, or nature, or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that. I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future. I love to live.”

— Henry David Thoreau

283. “In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.”

— Henry David Thoreau

284. “To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.”

— Henry David Thoreau

285. “Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.”

— Henry David Thoreau

286. “Time is like a handful of sand – the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.”

— Henry David Thoreau

287. “Where the most beautiful wild flowers grow, there mans spirit is fed and poets grow.”

— Henry David Thoreau

288. “When I consider how, after sunset, the stars come out gradually in troops from behind the hills and woods, I confess that I could not have contrived a more curious and inspiring sight.”

— Henry David Thoreau

289. “I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise til noon, rapt in a revery.”

— Henry David Thoreau

290. “I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful.”

— Henry David Thoreau

291. “I stand in awe of my body.”

— Henry David Thoreau

292. “It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination.”

— Henry David Thoreau

293. “Don’t get to the end of your life and realize you have never lived.”

— Henry David Thoreau

294. “The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost.”

— Henry David Thoreau

295. “I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.”

— Henry David Thoreau

296. “Sincerity is a great but rare virtue, and we pardon to it much complaining, and the betrayal of many weaknesses.”

— Henry David Thoreau

297. “If misery loves company, misery has company enough.”

— Henry David Thoreau

298. “The voice of nature is always encouraging.”

— Henry David Thoreau

299. “The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show.”

— Henry David Thoreau

300. “Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve.”

— Henry David Thoreau