Henry David Thoreau quotes - page 6

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields andwoods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be coldand hungry and weary. (Henry David Thoreau)
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
What is once well done is done forever. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. (Henry David Thoreau)
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
In the long run, we only hit what we aim at. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
A taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. View quote
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)
Poetry is the mysticism of mankind. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
My greatest skill in life has been to want but little. View quote
Henry David Thoreau