Moral Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

— Henry David Thoreau

All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Henry David Thoreau

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

— Henry David Thoreau

Man's moral nature is a riddle which only eternity can solve.

— Henry David Thoreau

Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.

— Henry David Thoreau

What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

— Henry David Thoreau

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of so much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be…

— Henry David Thoreau

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.

— Henry David Thoreau

It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways…

— Henry David Thoreau

Alas! the culture of an Irishman is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe.

— Henry David Thoreau

The eye which can appreciate the naked and absolute beauty of a scientific truth is far more rare than that which is…

— Henry David Thoreau

How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health!

— Henry David Thoreau

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right…

— Henry David Thoreau

There are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or inlet, yet unexplored by him.

— 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

The whole body of what is now called moral or ethical truth existed in the golden age as abstract science. Or, if…

— Henry David Thoreau

How wholesome winter is, seen far or near; how good, above all mere sentimental, warm-blooded, short-lived, soft-hearted, moral goodness, commonly so called.…

— Henry David Thoreau

If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him.…

— Henry David Thoreau

Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more private and familiar,…

— Henry David Thoreau

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George the Fourth and continue…

— Henry David Thoreau

In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets.…

— Henry David Thoreau

Yet the New Testament treats of man and man's so-called spiritual affairs too exclusively, and is too constantly moral and personal, to…

— Henry David Thoreau

So behave that the odor of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere, that when we behold or scent…

— Henry David Thoreau

America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be fought; but surely it cannot be…

— Henry David Thoreau

We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has as yet been sung. The ancients had…

— Henry David Thoreau

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be…

— Henry David Thoreau

Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,--that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses…

— Henry David Thoreau

Four things to think about. 1. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.…

— Henry David Thoreau

On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days… Such…

— Henry David Thoreau

In war, in some sense, lies the very genius of law. It is law creative and active; it is the first principle…

— Henry David Thoreau

On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom…

— Henry David Thoreau

What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority. The marines and the…

— Henry David Thoreau

There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of "expediency." There is no such thing as sliding…

— Henry David Thoreau

Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed…

— Henry David Thoreau

All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of thewords…

— Henry David Thoreau

The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical. Nothing will dignify and…

— Henry David Thoreau

Is not the midnight like Central Africa to most of us? Are we not tempted to explore it,--to penetrate to the shores…

— 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

Others -- as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders -- serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely…

— Henry David Thoreau