Henry David Thoreau quotes - page 21

A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority. (Henry David Thoreau)
Sobriety, severity, and self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The meeting of two eternities, the past and future....is precisely the present moment. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
It is only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds. (Henry David Thoreau)
To be awake is to be alive. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
When I hear a grown man or woman say, 'Once I had faith in men, now I have not,' I am inclined to ask, 'Who are you whom the world has disappointed Have not you rather disappointed the world' View quote
Henry David Thoreau
O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The only wealth is life. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight to the finish spirit is the one... characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers. (Henry David Thoreau)
The devil finds work for idle hands. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The pleasures of the intellect are permanent, the pleasures of the heart are transitory. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Four things to think about. 1. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. 2. Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred. 3. Keep three chairs in your house. One for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. 4. To preserve your relationship to nature, make your life more moral, more pure, more innocent. View quote
Henry David Thoreau