Mind Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.

— Henry David Thoreau

The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind.

— Henry David Thoreau

What exercise is to the body, employment is to the mind and morals.

— Henry David Thoreau

The eye may see for the hand, but not for the mind.

— Henry David Thoreau

In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind.

— Henry David Thoreau

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

— Henry David Thoreau

What the banker sighs for, the meanest clown may have-leisure and a quiet mind.

— Henry David Thoreau

Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.

— Henry David Thoreau

Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmie that…

— Henry David Thoreau

I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts…

— Henry David Thoreau

We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects…

— Henry David Thoreau

By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad,…

— 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…

— Henry David Thoreau

To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most…

— Henry David Thoreau

Direct your eye inward, and you'll find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be / Expert in home-cosmography

— Henry David Thoreau

A temple, you know, was anciently "an open place without a roof," whose walls served merely to shut out the world and…

— Henry David Thoreau

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily,…

— Henry David Thoreau

I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not…

— Henry David Thoreau

Even the facts of science may dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are ... rendered fertile by the dews of…

— Henry David Thoreau

What do the botanists know? Our lives should go between the lichen and the bark. The eye may see for the hand,…

— Henry David Thoreau

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in…

— Henry David Thoreau

We saw one school-house in our walk, and listened to the sounds which issued from it; but it appeared like a place…

— Henry David Thoreau

The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than…

— Henry David Thoreau

I have not yet learned to live, that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very soon. I find,…

— Henry David Thoreau

He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something…

— Henry David Thoreau

Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe Elizabethan…

— Henry David Thoreau

Our bread need not ever be sour or hard to digest. What Nature is to the mind she is also to the…

— 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,…

— 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 had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it…

— Henry David Thoreau

Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very…

— Henry David Thoreau

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

— Henry David Thoreau

You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind.

— Henry David Thoreau

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly, I think any fool can make a…

— Henry David Thoreau

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in…

— Henry David Thoreau

It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to their minds, but that a little money or…

— Henry David Thoreau

I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It…

— Henry David Thoreau

My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths…

— Henry David Thoreau

I have no doubt that they lived pretty much the same sort of life in the Homeric age, for men have always…

— Henry David Thoreau