H D Thoreau Quotes & Sayings

We find it difficult to choose our direction because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea. — Henry David Thoreau

Surely one may as profitably be soaked in the juices of a swamp for one day as pick his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and damp ? are they not as rich experience as warmth and dryness? — Henry David Thoreau

I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. — Henry David Thoreau

Sphere Music - Some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then settle to earth again like dust; such are Noise, Discord, Jargon. But such only as spring heavenward, and I may catch from steeples and hilltops in their upward course, which are the more refined parts of the former, are the true sphere music - pure, unmixed music - in which no wail mingles. — Henry David Thoreau

This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to improve it, how little have we cleared and hedged and ditched! We are too inclined to go hence to a "better land," without lifting a finger, as our farmers are moving to the Ohio soil; but would it not be more heroic and faithful to till and redeem this New England soil of the world? — Henry David Thoreau

Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning. — Henry David Thoreau

It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him [H.D. Thoreau]. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his own. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The question from agnosticism is, 'who turned on the lights?' The question from faith is 'whatever for?' Thoreau climbed Mount Katahdin and gives vent to an almost outraged sense of the reality of the things of this world: "I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries- think of our life in nature-daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,- rocks, trees, wind! — Annie Dillard

The imagination never forgets; it is a re-membering. It is not foundationless, but most reasonable, and it alone uses all the knowledge of the intellect. — Henry David Thoreau

It mattered little to anyone outside the Transcendental coterie that Bronson Alcott had finally written something publishable - his "Orphic Sayings" - for the opening issue; or that an unemployed schoolteacher named Henry David Thoreau had his first piece published in its pages. — Megan Marshall

Nothing but great antiquity can make graveyards interesting to me. I have no friends there. — Henry David Thoreau

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. — Henry David Thoreau

You conquer fate through thought — Henry David Thoreau

The gods cannot misunderstand, man cannot explain. — Henry David Thoreau

Most men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them. — Henry David Thoreau

God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator. — Henry David Thoreau

Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a sort of locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his machinery, is meeting the horse and the ox half-way. — Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau's writings feel more alive to me than any thing that I've ever read. When I read anything by Thoreau, I see his subject. I feel it. I taste it. I smell it. I feel as though he's walking beside me, showing me with gestures and soft-spoken words the marvelous natural wonders that he's written about. — Nicholas Trandahl

No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to. — Henry David Thoreau

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

Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work. — Henry David Thoreau

There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world over, living on anticipation. — Henry David Thoreau

This is one of those instances in which the individual genius is found to consent, as indeed it always does, at last, with the universal. — Henry David Thoreau

As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. — Henry David Thoreau

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one. — Henry David Thoreau

That man is richest who's pleasure are cheapest. — Henry David Thoreau

The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence. — Henry David Thoreau

Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave money to defray the expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our Friends have no place in the graveyard. — Henry David Thoreau

The murmurs of many a famous river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, as to more distant dwellers on its banks;many a poet's stream, floating the helms and shields of heroes on its bosom. — Henry David Thoreau

We slander the hyena; man is the fiercest and cruelest animal. — Henry David Thoreau

Undoubtedly, in the most brilliant successes, the first rank is always sacrificed. — Henry David Thoreau

To a philosopher all news is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. — Henry David Thoreau