Henry David Quotes & Sayings

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

It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. — 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

Man emulates earth Earth emulates heaven Heaven emulates the Way The way emulates nature. — Henry David Thoreau

It was only after I untied my girlfriend from being face down on the bed that I learned her screaming, 'Asshole!' was a statement about my character and not an invitation or request. — David Henry

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

I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect ... always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished. — Henry David Thoreau

Exaggerated history is poetry, and truth referred to a new standard. — Henry David Thoreau

I love my friends very much, but I find that it is of no use to go to see them. I hate them commonly when I am near them. They belie themselves and deny me continually. — Henry David Thoreau

The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have. — Henry David Thoreau

A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels. Why not begin his travels at home? Would he have to go far or look very closely to discover novelties? The traveler who, in this sense, pursues his travels at home, has the advantage at any rate of a long residence in the country to make his observations correct and profitable. Now the American goes to England, while the Englishman comes to America, in order to describe the country. — Henry David Thoreau

I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. — Henry David Thoreau

The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state.
... The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard. — 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

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain. — Henry David Thoreau

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. — Henry David Thoreau

It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, to-morrow, and dying to-day, insolvent ... — Henry David Thoreau

He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. Butwe would not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described. They are truths in physics because they are true in ethics. — Henry David Thoreau

The newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Biblewhich every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are continually dispersing. It is, in short, the only book which America has printed, and which America reads. So wide is its influence. — Henry David Thoreau

A strange age of the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard pushed and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it. — Henry David Thoreau

It will always be found that one flourishing institution exists and battens on another mouldering one. The Present itself is parasitic to this extent. — Henry David Thoreau

The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that which is attracted by a moral one. — Henry David Thoreau

Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface,not concluded in the appendix. Even Virgil's poetry serves a very different use to me today from what it did to his contemporaries. It has often an acquired and accidental value merely, proving that man is still man in the world. — Henry David Thoreau

We are all of us more or less active physiognomists. — Henry David Thoreau

What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? — Henry David Thoreau

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man. — Henry David Thoreau

Few and fewer pigeons visit us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the grove in our minds is laid waste
sold to feed unnecessary fires of ambition, or sent to mill
and there is scarcely a twig left for them to perch on. — Henry David Thoreau

For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labour of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. — Henry David Thoreau

Our science, so called, is always more barren and mixed with error than our sympathies. — Henry David Thoreau

The seasons and all their changes are in me. — Henry David Thoreau

I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. — Henry David Thoreau

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases. — Henry David Thoreau

In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind. — Henry David Thoreau

Compared with this simple, fibrous life, our civilized history appears the chronicle of debility, of fashion, and the arts of luxury. But the civilized man misses no real refinement in the poetry of the rudest era. It reminds him that civilization does but dress men. It makes shoes, but it does not toughen the soles of the feet. It makes cloth of finer texture, but it does not touch the skin. Inside the civilized man stands the savage still in the place of honor. We are those blue-eyed, yellow-haired Saxons, those slender, dark-haired Normans. — Henry David Thoreau

Surely the fates are forever kind, though Nature's laws are more immutable than any despot's, yet to man's daily life they rarelyseem rigid, but permit him to relax with license in summer weather. He is not harshly reminded of the things he may not do. — Henry David Thoreau

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors. — Henry David Thoreau

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. — Henry David Thoreau

Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable. — Henry David Thoreau

The most interesting thing which I heard of, in this township of Hull, was an unfailing spring, whose locality was pointed out tome on the side of a distant hill, as I was panting along the shore, though I did not visit it. Perhaps, if I should go through Rome, it would be some spring on the Capitoline Hill I should remember the longest. — Henry David Thoreau

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals. — Henry David Thoreau

What recommends commerce to me is its enterprise and bravery. It does not clasp its hands and pray to Jupiter. — Henry David Thoreau

Why should Canada, wild and unsettled as it is, impress us as an older country than the States, unless because her institutions are old? All things appeared to contend there, as I have implied, with a certain rust of antiquity, such as forms on old armor and iron guns,
the rust of conventions and formalities. It is said that the metallic roofs of Montreal and Quebec keep sound and bright for forty years in some cases. But if the rust was not on the tinned roofs and spires, it was on the inhabitants and their institutions. — Henry David Thoreau

Men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. — Henry David Thoreau

This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one center. — Henry David Thoreau

They say that characters were engraven on the bathtub of king Tching-thang to this effect: 'renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.' I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages. — Henry David Thoreau

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

Water is a pioneer which the settler follows, taking advantage of its improvements. — Henry David Thoreau

We should read history as little critically as we consider the landscape, and be more interested by the atmospheric tints and various lights and shades which the intervening spaces create than by its groundwork and composition. — Henry David Thoreau

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

The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage. — Henry David Thoreau

I am a majority of one. — Henry David Thoreau

We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always. — Henry David Thoreau

I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone. — Henry David Thoreau

The mathematical likelihood that God exists is astronomical. But the idea that our limited human mentality can understand the true nature of God borders on the ridiculous. For this reason the religionist and the ahteist are equally naive. — Keith David Henry

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

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

You conquer fate through thought — Henry David Thoreau

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

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

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

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

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

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

My first plays were amazingly bad, but I had a teacher who thought I had promise, and he kept working with me. I finally went to a summer workshop before my senior year with people like Sam Shepard and Maria Irene Fornes who encouraged me to write from my subconscious, and suddenly all this material about culture clash came out. — David Henry Hwang

As I sounded through the ice I could determine the shape of the bottom with greater accuracy than is possible in surveying harbors which do not freeze over, and I was surprised at its general regularity. In the deepest part there are several acres more level than almost any field which is exposed to the sun, wind, and plow. In one instance, on a line arbitrarily chosen, the depth did not vary more than one foot in thirty rods; and generally, near the middle, I could calculate the variation for each one hundred feet in any direction beforehand within three or four inches. Some are accustomed to speak of deep and dangerous holes even in quiet sandy ponds like this, — Henry David Thoreau

We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character. — Henry David Thoreau

To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, andflatter and study effect only more finely than the rest. — Henry David Thoreau

The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact ... In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. — Henry David Thoreau

A fortified town is like a man cased in the heavy armor of antiquity, with a horse-load of broadswords and small arms slung to him, endeavoring to go about his business. — Henry David Thoreau

To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the true state of things, the political state can hardly be said to have any existence whatever. It is unreal, incredible, and insignificant to him, and for him to endeavor to extract the truth from such lean material is like making sugar from linen rags, when sugar-cane may be had. — Henry David Thoreau

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. The former are so much the freer. — Henry David Thoreau

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. — Henry David Thoreau

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me ... I milk the sky and the earth. — Henry David Thoreau

Some interests have got a footing on the earth which we have not made sufficient allowance for. — Henry David Thoreau

If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the devil's angels. — Henry David Thoreau

If you look over a list of medicinal recipes in vogue in the last century, how foolish and useless they are seen to be! And yet we use equally absurd ones with faith today. — Henry David Thoreau

Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper. — Henry David Thoreau

What a fool he must be who thinks that his El Dorado is anywhere but where he lives. — Henry David Thoreau

A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart. — Henry David Thoreau

I've been living out loud the Henry David Thoreau saying: "What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals." The quest of the Cuba — Diana Nyad

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. — Henry David Thoreau

He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born. — Henry David Thoreau

There is no just and serene criticism as yet. — Henry David Thoreau

The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings. — 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