Labor Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

All great enterprises are self-supporting.

— Henry David Thoreau

I have not earned what I have already enjoyed.

— Henry David Thoreau

“In my opinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil than this.”

— Henry David Thoreau

A man may travel fast enough and earn his living on the road.

— Henry David Thoreau

There are many skillful apprentices, but few master workmen.

— Henry David Thoreau

We are all of us Apollos serving some Admetus.

— Henry David Thoreau

I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary.

— Henry David Thoreau

A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.

— Henry David Thoreau

“Some are 'industrious' and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief;…

— Henry David Thoreau

One can hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and the observation of nature.

— Henry David Thoreau

We 've wholly forgotten how to die. But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and finish it. If you…

— Henry David Thoreau

Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.

— Henry David Thoreau

If I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be inclined…

— Henry David Thoreau

I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and…

— Henry David Thoreau

It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part.

— Henry David Thoreau

But labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudgery, is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It…

— Henry David Thoreau

Poetry is the only life got, the only work done, the only pure product and free labor of man, performed only when…

— Henry David Thoreau

Whose are the truly labored sentences? From the weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we are glad to…

— Henry David Thoreau

The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whatever checks and compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell…

— Henry David Thoreau

Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but…

— Henry David Thoreau

Steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of…

— Henry David Thoreau

That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky,…

— Henry David Thoreau

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what…

— Henry David Thoreau

As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want.…

— Henry David Thoreau

The principal, the only, thing a man makes, is his condition of fate. Though commonly he does not know it, nor put…

— Henry David Thoreau

Unless the human race perspire more than I do, there is no occasion to live by the sweat of their brow. If…

— Henry David Thoreau

Some are "industrious," and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief;…

— Henry David Thoreau

How we shall earn our bread is a grave question; yet it is a sweet and inviting question. Let us not shirk…

— Henry David Thoreau

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these…

— Henry David Thoreau

Life consists with Wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed…

— Henry David Thoreau

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only…

— Henry David Thoreau

“The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money…

— Henry David Thoreau

Surely the writer is to address a world of laborers, and such therefore must be his own discipline.

— Henry David Thoreau

We perceive that the schemers return again and again to common sense and labor. Such is the evidence of history.

— Henry David Thoreau

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost.

— Henry David Thoreau

Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render.

— Henry David Thoreau

Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.

— Henry David Thoreau

Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for…

— Henry David Thoreau

The whole of the day should not be daytime; there should be one hour, if not more, which the day did not…

— Henry David Thoreau

Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans.

— Henry David Thoreau