Top 500 Henry David Thoreau Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.”

— Henry David Thoreau

402. “Life is grand, and so are its environments of Past and Future. Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man’s destiny were not equally so?”

— Henry David Thoreau

403. “For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once done well is done forever.”

— Henry David Thoreau

404. “Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.”

— Henry David Thoreau

405. “The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.”

— Henry David Thoreau

406. “Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”

— Henry David Thoreau

407. “The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the heavens; evenafter the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.”

— Henry David Thoreau

408. “Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum – many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!”

— Henry David Thoreau

409. “There is more religion in men’s science, than there is science in their religion.”

— Henry David Thoreau

410. “By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.”

— Henry David Thoreau

411. “There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.”

— Henry David Thoreau

412. “Our molting season, like that of the fouls, must be a crisis in our lives.”

— Henry David Thoreau

413. “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.”

— Henry David Thoreau

414. “The little things in life are as interesting as the big ones.”

— Henry David Thoreau

415. “Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.”

— Henry David Thoreau

416. “To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

417. “Talk of mysteries! – Think of our life in nature, – daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, – rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?”

— Henry David Thoreau

418. “It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.”

— Henry David Thoreau

419. “Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is, in this sense, a hospital.”

— Henry David Thoreau

420. “The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the marketplace.”

— Henry David Thoreau

421. “Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much.”

— Henry David Thoreau

422. “The traveler must be born again on the road, and earn a passport from the elements.”

— Henry David Thoreau

423. “The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.”

— Henry David Thoreau

424. “In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.”

— Henry David Thoreau

425. “There never is but one opportunity of a kind.”

— Henry David Thoreau

426. “Commerce is really as interesting as nature.”

— Henry David Thoreau

427. “Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds?”

— Henry David Thoreau

428. “Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.”

— Henry David Thoreau

429. “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

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

— Henry David Thoreau

431. “The three-o’-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

433. “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

434. “There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.”

— Henry David Thoreau

435. “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

436. “Oh, one world at a time!”

— Henry David Thoreau

437. “He who eats the fruit should at least plant the seed; ay, if possible, a better seed than that whose fruit he has enjoyed.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

439. “If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

441. “Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.”

— Henry David Thoreau

442. “Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green.”

— Henry David Thoreau

443. “Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings.”

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

445. “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

— Henry David Thoreau

446. “Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towardsrecognizing and organizing the rights of man?”

— Henry David Thoreau

447. “Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction – a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the muse.”

— Henry David Thoreau

448. “It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver.”

— Henry David Thoreau

449. “A man sits as many risks as he runs.”

— Henry David Thoreau

450. “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