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Henry David Thoreau Quotes and Sayings
Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David Thoreau

Be not merely good; be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau

Related topics: Values Service

May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- Henry David Thoreau

What old people say you cannot do,
you try and find that you can.
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- Henry David Thoreau

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
- Henry David Thoreau

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The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
- Henry David Thoreau

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important
as what you become by achieving your goals.
- Henry David Thoreau

The perception of beauty is a moral test.
- Henry David Thoreau

 

It is what a man thinks of himself
that really determines his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau

No face which we can give to a matter
will stead us so well at last as the truth.
This alone wears well.
- Henry David Thoreau

Ignorance and bungling with love
are better than wisdom and skill without.
- Henry David Thoreau

Do what you love.
Know your own bone;
gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it,
and gnaw it still.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
- Henry David Thoreau

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed,
and in such desperate enterprises?
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations.
For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
- Henry David Thoreau

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man loses pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
- Henry David Thoreau

As you simplify your life,
the laws of the universe will be simpler;
solitude will not be solitude,
poverty will not be poverty,
nor weakness weakness.
- Henry David Thoreau

Aim above morality.
Be not simply good,
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants.
The question is: What are we busy about?
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,
not by mechanical aid, but by
an infinite expectation of the dawn.
- Henry David Thoreau

You must live in the present,
launch yourself on every wave,
find your eternity in each moment.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.
Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
- Henry David Thoreau

If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal,
and then leap in the dark to our success.
- Henry David Thoreau

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.
- Henry David Thoreau

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
- Henry David Thoreau

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked,
in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know,
can any work be humble or disgusting?
Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder,
the means by which we are translated?
- Henry David Thoreau

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new
continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
- Henry David Thoreau

Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
- Henry David Thoreau

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
- Henry David Thoreau

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

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau

It is not desirable to cultivate
a respect for the law,
so much as for the right.
- Henry David Thoreau

There are old heads in the world
who cannot help me by their example or advice
to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself;
but I believe that it is in my power
to elevate myself this very hour
above the common level of my life.
- Henry David Thoreau

Live the life you've dreamed.
- Henry David Thoreau

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
- Henry David Thoreau

Could a greater miracle take place
than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
- Henry David Thoreau

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day,
he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer.
But if he spends his days as a speculator,
shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time,
he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
- Henry David Thoreau

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity;
so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
- Henry David Thoreau

The smallest seed of faith is better than
the largest fruit of happiness.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau

There is no odor so bad as that
which arises from goodness tainted.
- Henry David Thoreau

Not Quotes and Sayings

Lord, grant that I might not so much
seek to be loved as to love.
- St. Francis of Assisi

Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty,
believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
- Louisa May Alcott

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

We are not held back by the love we didn't receive in the past,
but by the love we're not extending in the present.
- Marianne Williamson

Treat those who are good with goodness,
and also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
Be honest to those who are honest,
and be also honest to those who are not honest.
Thus honesty is attained.
- Lao Tzu

The mind is not a vessel to be filled
but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch

The beauty does not live out there;
the beauty's in my eyes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek,
but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

You will not be punished for your anger,
you will be punished by your anger.
- The Buddha

Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.
- Rabindranath Tagore

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore

You do not need anyone's permission to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Hold on... Joyfully.
Holding-on does not have to be
a desperate teeth-gritting kind of holding-on.
Holding-on can be a joyful
"this is just the nature of Life,
so I may as well enjoy it"
kind of holding-on.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Everything has beauty,
but not everyone sees it.
- Confucius

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- Oscar Wilde

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot

A ship in harbor is safe -
but that is not what ships are for.
- John A. Shedd

A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu

I am not afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott

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