Explore Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.

What is once well done is done forever.

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!

How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

Faith never makes a confession.