Inspirational Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

The world rests on principles.

— Henry David Thoreau

I stand in awe of my body.

— Henry David Thoreau

The sun is but a morning star.

— Henry David Thoreau

Love does not analyze its object.

— Henry David Thoreau

Write while the heat is in you.

— Henry David Thoreau

The eye is the jewel of the body.

— Henry David Thoreau

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

— Henry David Thoreau

Birds never sing in caves.

— Henry David Thoreau

What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

— Henry David Thoreau

I am grateful for what I have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

— Henry David Thoreau

Heroes are often the most ordinary of men.

— Henry David Thoreau

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

— Henry David Thoreau

To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.

— Henry David Thoreau

The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise.

— Henry David Thoreau

When you knock, ask to see God — none of the servants.

— Henry David Thoreau

Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.

— Henry David Thoreau

The bad are frequently good enough to let you see how bad they are, but the good as frequently endeavor to get…

— Henry David Thoreau

My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.

— Henry David Thoreau

My themes will not be far-fetched. I will tell of homely every-day phenomena and adventures.

— Henry David Thoreau

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several…

— Henry David Thoreau

Most people dread finding out when they come to die that they have never really lived.

— Henry David Thoreau

It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady.

— Henry David Thoreau

How rarely I meet with a man who can be free, even in thought! We all live according to rule. Some men…

— Henry David Thoreau

So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.

— Henry David Thoreau

Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich,…

— 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…

— 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…

— Henry David Thoreau

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature…

— Henry David Thoreau

The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods,…

— Henry David Thoreau

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is…

— Henry David Thoreau

The kindness I have longest remembered has been of this sort, the sort unsaid; so far behind the speaker's lips that almost…

— Henry David Thoreau

The poet's, commonly, is not a logger's path, but a woodman's. The logger and pioneer have preceded him, like John the Baptist;…

— Henry David Thoreau

But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines,…

— Henry David Thoreau

“As the sun went down, I saw a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews seemed to strain and…

— Henry David Thoreau

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not…

— Henry David Thoreau

“Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in…

— Henry David Thoreau

The word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which…

— Henry David Thoreau

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to…

— Henry David Thoreau

If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the…

— Henry David Thoreau

I love the broad margin to my life.

— Henry David Thoreau