I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not truly… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which these things would be by… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not wish, it happens, to be associated with Massachusetts, either in holding slaves or in conquering Mexico. I am a… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I have made a very rude translation of the Seven against Thebes, and Pindar too I have looked at, and wish he… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The man of genius, like a dog with a bone, or the slave who has swallowed a diamond, or a patient with… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Trench says a wild man is a willed man. Well, then, a man of will who does what he wills or wishes,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to… — 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
