Guess quote

Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862] American

Rank: 3
Poet (with poems), Essayist

Anarchism, Didactism, Pantheism, Philosophy, Sage writers, Slavery, Transcendentalism

Henry David Thoreau was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian.

Life, Men, Friendship, Morning, Nature, Alone, Dreams, Environmental, Good, Government, Love, Truth, Wisdom, Work, Health, Imagination, Money, Success, Time, Beauty, Best, Business, Change, Faith, Happiness, Inspirational, Learning, Music, Respect, Society, Age, Architecture, Art, Brainy, Chance, Design, Experience, Fear, Funny, Great, History, Intelligence, Knowledge, Legal, Motivational, Peace, Poetry, Positive, Power, Relationship, Religion, Sad, Space, Sports, Sympathy, Technology, Thanksgiving, War, Women

Quote	Tags	Rank
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.	Wisdom	31
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.	Thanksgiving	101
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.	Brainy	102
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.	Art, Imagination	103
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.	Experience, Life, Money	105
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.	Love, Peace	106
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.	Morning	107
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.	Inspirational, Music	108
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.	Life	109
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.	Inspirational	110
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.		111
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.	Men, Sports	112
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.		113
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.	Life	114
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.	Friendship	115
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.	Friendship	116
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.	Dreams, Life, Success	117
Things do not change; we change.	Change	118
Men have become the tools of their tools.	Men, Technology	119
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.	Dreams, Friendship	120
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.		121
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.		122
There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.	Nature	123
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.	Good	124
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.	Sad	125
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.	Best	126
It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.		201
Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.	Love	202
Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.	Best	203
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.	Environmental, Life, Men	204
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.	Nature	205
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.	Environmental, Love, Time	206
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.	Life	207
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.	Success	208
Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.		209
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.		210
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.	Nature	211
To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.	Women	212
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.	Nature	213
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.	Work	214
The perception of beauty is a moral test.	Beauty	215
Be not simply good - be good for something.	Good	216
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.		217
There is no remedy for love but to love more.	Love	218
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.		219
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.	Age	220
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.	Work	221
If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.	Government, Legal, Nature	222
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.	Men	223
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.		224
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.	Time	225
There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.		226
What is once well done is done forever.		301
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.		302
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.	Fear, Music	303
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.		304
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.	Success	305
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.	Happiness	306
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.		307
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.	Money, Truth	308
We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.		309
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.	Men	310
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.	Good	311
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.	Money, Work	312
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.	Religion	313
Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.		314
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.		315
How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.	Government	316
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.		317
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.		318
The heart is forever inexperienced.	Relationship	319
In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.		320
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.		321
The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.	Time	322
The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.		323
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?		324
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.		325
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.		326
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.	Design, Funny	401
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.		402
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.	Morning	403
In wildness is the preservation of the world.		404
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.	Friendship, Knowledge	405
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.		406
Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?		407
As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.	Society	408
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.	Men	409
I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.		410
There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.	Health	411
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?	Work	412
Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.		413
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.		414
Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.		415
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.	Learning, Men, Respect	416
It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.	History	417
The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.	Truth	418
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.	Friendship, Society	419
If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.	Government	420
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.		421
I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live and could not spare any more time for that one.		422
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.		423
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.	Environmental	424
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.	Life	425
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?	Space	426
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.		501
What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.	Health, Motivational	502
We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.	Alone	503
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.	Dreams	504
Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.	Positive	505
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.	Wisdom	506
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.		507
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.		508
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.		509
I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.		510
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.		511
Truths and roses have thorns about them.		512
The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.	Faith, Happiness	513
Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!	Beauty	514
There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.	Power	515
I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.		516
Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.		517
They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.	Architecture	518
It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.		519
May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!		520
The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.	Truth	521
So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.	Change	522
I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.		523
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?		524
We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.		525
The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.		526
It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.	Environmental, Sympathy	601
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.		602
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.	Truth	603
The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.		604
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.	Dreams, Life	605
The universe is wider than our views of it.		606
It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.		607
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?	Great	608
Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.		609
After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.		610
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.	Business	611
There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.		612
It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of today.		613
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.	Alone	614
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.		615
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.	Morning	616
If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.		617
There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.	Alone	618
Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.		619
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.		620
We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.		621
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.		622
Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.	Good	623
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.	Alone	624
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.		625
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.		626
We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.		701
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.	Respect	702
That government is best which governs least.	Government	703
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.	Wisdom	704
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.		705
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.		706
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.		707
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.		708
How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?		709
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.		710
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.		711
There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.		712
It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.		713
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.		714
Live the life you've dreamed.		715
'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.	Health	716
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.		717
There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.		718
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.	Morning	719
A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.		720
The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.		721
Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.		722
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.	Business, Poetry	723
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.		724
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.		725
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.		726
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.		801
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?		802
Being is the great explainer.		803
To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.		804
Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.	Faith	805
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.		806
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.		807
Simplify, simplify.		808
It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.	Learning	809
To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.		810
Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.		811
There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.		812
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.		813
Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.		814
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.	Imagination	815
Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.		816
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.		817
There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.		818
To be awake is to be alive.		819
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed... Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.		820
How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!		821
I have the habit of attention to such excess, that my senses get no rest - but suffer from a constant strain.		822
Every day or two, I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.		823
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.		824
If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.		825
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.	Friendship	826
In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.	Morning	901
God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.		902
I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.		903
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.	Intelligence	904
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.	Chance	905
If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?		906
What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.	War	907
It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.	Imagination	908
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.		909
Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.		910
Faith never makes a confession.		911
Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.		912
There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.		913
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.		914
There is no just and serene criticism as yet.		915
Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.		916
There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.		917
Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.		918
How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?		919
Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?		920
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.		921
I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.		922
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.	Wisdom	923
Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.		924
An unclean person is universally a slothful one.		925
The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.		926
In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.		1001
I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.		1002
I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.		1003
How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.		1004
We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.		1005
I cannot read a single word of the Hindoos without being elevated.		1006

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