Stirring Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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

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

“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

I am not afraid of praise, for I have practiced it on myself.

— Henry David Thoreau

“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

“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

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

A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

— Henry David Thoreau

The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel.

— Henry David Thoreau

Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

— Henry David Thoreau