Henry David Thoreau Quotes

There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of 'expediency.' There is no such thing as sliding up hill. In morals, the only sliders are backsliders.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.

~ Henry David Thoreau

What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance?

~ Henry David Thoreau

Which is the best man to deal with,-he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?

~ Henry David Thoreau

There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony.

~ Henry David Thoreau

The silence rings—it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible—I hear the unspeakable.

~ Henry David Thoreau

The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Most men are satisfied if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading.

~ Henry David Thoreau

I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.

~ Henry David Thoreau

I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.

~ Henry David Thoreau

The fate of the country... does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

~ Henry David Thoreau

I heartily accept the motto, That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

~ Henry David Thoreau

for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.

~ Henry David Thoreau

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

~ Henry David Thoreau

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.

~ Henry David Thoreau

The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him.

~ Henry David Thoreau

The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, -a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be, -Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,As his corse to the rampart were hurried;Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

~ Henry David Thoreau

A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world.

~ Henry David Thoreau

It is a very remarkable and significant fact that though no man is quite well or healthy yet every one believes practically that health is the rule & disease the exception.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Man wanted a home, a place for warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.

~ Henry David Thoreau

We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven

~ Henry David Thoreau

We are more of the earth,Farther from heaven these days.

~ Henry David Thoreau

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

~ Henry David Thoreau

A common and natural result of an undue respect of law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing, but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.

~ Henry David Thoreau

A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it. We must not be governed by rigid rules, as by the almanac, but let the season rule us. The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature's. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is, there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

~ Henry David Thoreau

Now-a-days, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty cap.

~ Henry David Thoreau

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?

~ Henry David Thoreau

This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?

~ Henry David Thoreau

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

~ Henry David Thoreau

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

~ Henry David Thoreau

As some heads cannot carry much wine, so it would seem that I cannot bear so much society as you can. I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don’t get enough of it this year I shall cry all the next.

~ Henry David Thoreau

A man thinking or working will always be alone, let him be where he will.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other.We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that musty old cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post office, and at the sociable, and at the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another.

~ Henry David Thoreau