It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If you're familiar with a principle you don't have to be familiar with all of its applications. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is not enough that we are truthful; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful about. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Some, it seems to me, elect their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick makes the best cane,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such as… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
This American government - what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
To the man who cherishes a secret in his breast, there is a still greater secret unexplored. Our most indifferent acts may… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are! — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every man should stand for a force which is perfectly irresistible. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A true politeness does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free; otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Methinks I am never quite committed, never wholly the creature of my moods, but always to some extent their critic. My only… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I expect a time when, or rather an integrity by which, a man will get his coat as honestly and as perfectly… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I must conclude that Conscience, if that be the name of it, was not given us for no purpose, or for a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, — The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
