Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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Experience is in the fingers and in the head. The heart is always a beginner.

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As long as I am a friend to the seasons I cannot imagine that life could become a burden to me.

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Why should I feel alone? Isn't our planet in the Milky Way?

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Truth is always paradoxical.

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Paradise can be defined as a place that people avoid.

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The most I could do for my friend is to be his friend.

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The tenderest plants make their way through the hardest soil, through the cracks of the rocks. So is kindness. What wedge, what hammer, what battering ram can be compared to the force of good, to that of a sincere person! Nothing compares to it.

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Man cannot live honestly and at the same time in prosperity and respect.

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Effort gives birth to wisdom and purity; vanity gives rise to ignorance and lasciviousness.

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Where people are unjustly imprisoned, the true place for a righteous man is also in prison.

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Judge your health by how you enjoy the morning and the spring.

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First of all, read the best books, because then you will never be able to read them again.

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How many people there are who, reading a good book, opened a new era in their lives!

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And faith and experience tell me one and the same thing: maintaining my existence on earth is not a difficult thing, but a fun thing, if we live simply and rationally.

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Law cannot make men free: men themselves must make law free.

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For love there is no other payment than the possibility of loving even more.

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If a person confidently walks in the direction of his desire and strives for the life he imagined, success will come to him at the most ordinary moment and at the most unexpected moment.

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If a person does not keep up with his companions, it is probably because he is listening to a different drum. Let him follow the song he hears.

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Each generation sneers at outdated patterns and devoutly follows the new.

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Kindness is the only garment that never grows old.

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For us it is more important to speak than to be heard.

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The capabilities of man are not known even to this day. We cannot draw any conclusions from past experience, for man was very little daring.

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In our time there are professors of philosophy, and not philosophers.

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We need to fear the rush of love as much as hate. When love is enduring, it is always serene and peaceful.

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Most of the luxury objects and the so-called comfort of life are not necessary for us, they are even obstacles in the evolution of mankind.

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If you have built sandcastles, it does not mean that your work has been wasted: this is exactly what real castles should look like. All that remains is to put a foundation under them.

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As if we could kill time without hurting eternity!

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How could nature be so bright and wonderful if man's predestination were otherwise?

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Books should be read as carefully and as slowly as they were written.

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Dreams are the cornerstones of our character.

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Loneliness is not measured in the miles that separate man from his neighbor.

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With no one is it so pleasant to communicate as you do with loneliness.

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You must not be overly moral, because you risk falling prey to self-delusion. Your target must be above morality. You have to be not just simply good, but good for something.

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Nothing smells so disgusting as corrupt godliness.

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Let us not underestimate the importance of the fact: someday, the flower of truth will bloom on it.

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Real people serve the state through their conscience.

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Find out where your roots are and don't worry about other worlds.

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We are often much lonelier among people than in the quiet of our rooms. When man thinks or works he is always alone with himself, wherever he is.

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We must read the best of literature, and not endlessly repeat its rudiments, thus spending our whole lives in a primary class.

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What good is a house if you don't have a good enough planet to build on?

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"Better times will come!" "Couldn't you specify the date?" one of the listeners was genuinely interested.

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People become instruments of their instruments.

"The most tender plants can push their way through the hardest rocks, and it is the same with kindness. Nothing can stop a truly kind and sincere person."

"When I sit on the seashore and listen to the waves beating on the sand, I feel free from any obligation, and I think that all the people of the world can change their constitutions without me."

"It is not enough to be a hardworking person. Think: what do you work at?"

"A wise man has doubts even in his best moments. Real truth is always accompanied by hesitations. If I could not hesitate, I could not believe."

"Our life would become wonderful if we could see all the disgusting things which exist in it."

"When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time."

"Many statements which are accepted as truth because they have been passed down to us by tradition look like truth only because we have never tested them, never thought about them in a more precise way. For the majority of mankind, religion is a habit, or, more precisely, tradition is their religion. Though it seems strange, I think that the first step to moral perfection is your liberation from the religion in which you were raised. Not a single person has come to perfection except by following this way."

"The body is the first student of the soul."

"The biggest happiness is when at the end of the year you feel better than at the beginning."

"A man cannot do everything; but this cannot be an excuse for doing bad things."

"The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard."

"Only when we forget what we were taught do we start to have real knowledge."

"Read the best books first, otherwise you’ll find you do not have time."

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Tragedy in human communication begins not when words are misunderstood, but when silence is misunderstood.

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According to my faith and experience, I am convinced that sustaining ourselves on this earth is not a bitter toil, but fun, if we live simply and wisely (...). It is not necessary to eat one's bread in the sweat of one's face.

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The bad that a man does, outlives him.

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I once ventured to kill a marmot that was destroying my bean field - that is, I helped its soul to advance on its wanderings, as the Oriental would say.

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To spend the better part of a man's life making money, only to enjoy a dubious freedom in the remaining and less valuable part: this reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune, then to return to England and live as a poet. Why didn't you start by moving into an attic room?

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It seems as if our main goal is to speak as quickly as possible, not to speak as meaningfully as possible.

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At the end of the day, you only hit what you aim for. Therefore, you should aim as high as possible - even if you are already doomed to failure.

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Every generation laughs at the old fashion, but follows the new with religious devotion.

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A farmer tells me: "You cannot live on plant food alone, because there is nothing in it from which bones can be built up"; therefore, he devotes a part of his day with an almost religious devotion to supplying his body with the raw material necessary for the building up of bones, and while he thus teaches, all the time you walk behind his oxen, who cheerfully pull him and his heavy plow forward with their bones built from plant food.

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We are all wise only in relation to a mathematical point, as the sailor or the fugitive slave fixes his eyes on the pole star; but it is sufficient control for our whole life. Maybe we won't get there within a predictable time, but we'll stay in the right direction anyway.

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They asked a wise man: - Among the many famous trees that the Most High God created to be strong and sprawling, not a single one is called azad, that is, free, only the cypress, which does not bear fruit. What secret is hidden in this? - And the sage answered as follows: - Each tree has its own fruit and its appointed season, in which it grows green and blooms, but in other seasons it withers and dries up. The cypress, however, is not subject to this alternation, because it is equally fresh green in every season; and this is the nature of the azad, a person who is free in religion.

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Friendship comes first, but friendship waits. At the same time, it is impossible to forget about our friends, even though they cannot fulfill our expectations. When they say goodbye, that's when we really start to scold them.

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A person's fate is sealed, or rather shown, by how he thinks about himself.

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Kindness is the only investment that always pays off.

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The essence of wisdom is not to do desperate things.

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Don't worry if you've built citadels! They are in their place. Now put their base under them!

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The past cannot be made present; we can never know what we are not. Yet the same veil covers the past, the present and the future.

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Even the smallest well has the advantage that if you look into it, you will notice that the earth is not a continent, but an island.

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In terms of imprisonment, it does not make a big difference whether we are locked up on a farm or in the county jail.

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What everyone claims to be true today, or silently accepts as true, tomorrow you may find out that it is false, nothing more than the smoke of public opinion, which someone thought was a real cloud from which fertile rain will fall on our lands.

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Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared to our own opinion.

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As I love nature, singing birds, glistening stubble, morning and evening, summer and winter, I love you.

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It takes two people to tell the truth: one to tell and one to listen.

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Not the things: we ourselves change.

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A person is richer the more he can give up.

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I went into the wilderness because I wanted to live consciously. I wanted to suck the life out of me forever. To destroy everything that was not life, so that at the hour of my death I would not realize that I had not lived.

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There is no one older than one whose flame of enthusiasm has died out.

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Friends do not live in harmony, as some say, but in harmony.

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I was completely devastated to say goodbye. I'd rather have the ground pulled out from under my feet than lose my thoughts of you!

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It's strange that while people talk about miracle, enlightenment, inspiration and so on in the past tense, love is timeless.

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There is no other medicine for love but love.

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Sometimes I wonder why we are so superficial - because that's almost what I have to say! - that we deal so much with the outrageous, but somewhat alien to us, issue of Negro slavery, when we have so many refined and cruel slave owners in both the North and the South. It's bad if someone has southern hair, even worse if he's from the northern states; but the worst thing is when you are on your own!

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Our noblest qualities are delicate, like the ashes of fruit: they can only be preserved with the most careful treatment.

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Most people, even in this comparatively free country, are, through sheer ignorance and error, so occupied with the supposed cares and unnecessary, rough labors of life that they cannot enjoy its nobler fruits. Their hands are so rough from overwork and tremble that they cannot take them off.

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Most of the time, we don't take into account that, after all, it is always the first person singular who speaks to us.

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I know of no more hopeful feeling than man's undoubted ability to elevate his own life through conscious effort.

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Experience each season as it passes around you, breathe in the air, drink your drink, taste the fruit and give yourself over to the enjoyment of it all.

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Many people fish all their lives without knowing that they are not looking for fish.

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Say what you need to say, not what others want to hear!

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No method or science can replace ever-vigilant attention.

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Dreams are touchstones of our personality.

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I don't want to please imagined situations, I prefer to accept the real situation; I am walking the only path I am given to walk, and on which no power can stop me.

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We could be happy if we always lived in the present and took advantage of every accidental good that we have - like the grass, which also shows the effect of a dewdrop falling on it - and we didn't waste our time to repent for the missed opportunities, which we used to call the fulfillment of duty. We are lingering in winter, even though it is already spring.

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A single quiet rain is enough for the grass to become many shades greener, and the more beautiful thoughts flowing into us also affect our hopes.

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The Earth is not just a part of dead history, layered on top of each other like the pages of a book, intended for the study of geologists and archaeologists, but living poetry, like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowering and fruit; therefore, it is not a fossil earth, but a living earth, compared to whose powerful central life all animal and plant life are mere parasites.

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The twenty-four hours of the day are a short summary of the year. Night is winter, morning and evening are spring and autumn, and south is summer.

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If we knew all the laws of Nature, we would only need a single fact, a description of an actual phenomenon, in order to be able to deduce the consequences arising from it. For now, however, we only know a few laws, and our conclusions are therefore mostly wrong, of course not because Nature is confused or inconsistent, but because essential elements are missing from our calculations. Our notions of lawfulness and harmony are limited to the few cases we know; but even more admirable is the harmony that is created from the interplay of previously unknown, apparently contradictory, but actually mutually supportive laws. Because, from our perspective, the laws of Nature are like the outline of mountains for a wanderer: it changes step by step, it has an infinite number of profiles, although in reality it has only one shape. Even if we split it open, drill through it, we cannot understand it in its entirety.

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As long as people believe in infinity, there will always be lakes that they think are bottomless.

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Nature does not ask or answer questions posed by mortals. A long time ago, he was determined.

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Inner beauty ennobles a person's facial features in one fell swoop, while meanness and sensuality roughen and animalize them.

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On a beautiful spring morning, all of a person's sins are forgiven. Such a day declares war on sin. As long as such a day shines upon us, even the worst sinner can repent. If we ourselves regain our innocence, our neighbor's will also be more pleasing to us.

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Be the Columbus of the new worlds and continents hidden within you, discover new channels - not for trade, but for thinking.

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We can only buy unnecessary things with unnecessary money. And what the soul needs for life does not require money.

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If I had to live in the corner of the attic in my world life, like the spider, the world would be just as spacious for me as long as my thoughts were with me.

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Most people think they are too good to live on public donations; but for the most part they do not consider themselves too good to make a living from dishonest business, although it is really much more humiliating.

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Love life no matter how poor it is. You can even experience a pleasant, interesting or enjoyable hour or two at the slum. The setting sun reflects as brilliantly from the window of the poor house as from the palace of the rich man; the snow melts just as quickly in front of your doorstep in spring.

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No matter how miserable your life is, live bravely and look wolf-eyed with him; don't waste it and don't try to escape it. Not as bad as you are.

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Let's always say what we need to say, not what we think we should say. The truth is always better than make-believe and imagination.

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Sometimes we describe someone who has a mind and a half as a half-wit, since we are only equal to one-third of his mind with reason.

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The words that best express our faith and trust are not at all definite, yet they are significant and fragrant as incense to the superior man.

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We are all sculptors and painters, our raw material is our own body, flesh and blood.

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We are all aware of the animal within us, which awakens the more our higher self slumbers. It is a creeping, sensual creature, and perhaps it cannot be completely driven out, it dwells in us like a disease even in apparent health. We can distance ourselves from it, but we can never change its nature.

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If we listen to the quiet but steadfast promptings of our genius, we can reach unforeseeable extremes, even madness - yet this is our true ordained path, our genius does not lie, we just have to follow it determinedly and faithfully.

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Humanity has never really read the works of great poets, because only great poets can read them. Until now, they have only been read as the masses read the stars: at most according to astrology, never according to the laws of astronomy.

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However much we may admire the occasional burst of eloquence from the orator, the most beautiful written word is usually as far and high above the fragile spoken language as the starry sky above the clouds. The stars are there: but let those who know read them.

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To read well, that is, to read the right books in the right mood, is an ennobling occupation, and tests the reader more than many things which the fashion of the day demands. We have to train in the same way that athletes train their bodies, so to speak, we have to move steadily towards this goal throughout our lives.

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If people thought a little more about what to do, maybe I would become a scientist or an observer.

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The intellect is a bard: it penetrates the secret of things.

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A poet and artist has never woven such a beautiful, lofty plan that one of his successors could not have realized.

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Only the truly significant and elevated things have absolute, permanent existence; petty fears and petty joys are just shadows of reality.

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Millions are awake enough for manual labor, but only one in a million is awake enough for effective mental effort, and one in a hundred million for the poetic or higher life.

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We are all uneducated, ignorant, and illiterate, and in this respect, I confess, I do not see any great difference between my compatriots of Concord, who really cannot read, and those who have only risen to the point of reading books for the food of children and the feeble-minded.

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How many are there for whom a book they read opened a new era in their lives! Somewhere we have that book that explains the old miracles and shows us new ones. Somewhere, what we consider unspeakable today is said.

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Are we longing for the heavens? - because we are also becoming a shame for the Earth!

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I have no esteem for a man or his work, in whose economy everything has a price, who would bring all the beauty of the landscape, but even the Lord God, to the market if he could get a cent for it, because the market is his real god; on whose farm nothing grows freely, no grain on his land, no flowers on his field, no fruit on his tree, but dollars, who does not care about the beauty of the fruit, because its fruit is only ripe for him when he has exchanged it for dollars.

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The risk is always the same whether we roll the dice or not.

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As long as a person lives, there is always the danger of dying, although the danger decreases proportionally the more undead that person is.

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He who works or thinks is always alone, wherever he is. Loneliness is not measured by miles, by how much distance separates a person from his neighbor. The diligent student in the hives of Cambridge University is as lonely as the dervish in the desert.

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With knowledge, we become more and more tolerant and liberal.

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The book should be read as thoughtfully and cautiously as it is written.

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The questions that torment and torment us have arisen in every wise man; not a single problem was left out; and each of them answered it as best they could with their words and their lives.

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Some people constantly say that we Americans, and people today in general, are intellectual dwarfs compared to the ancients, or even the people of the Elizabethan era. But what does it matter from our point of view? A live dog is worth more than a dead lion.

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Lord, if only I were not such a wretch, That I would have to live disappointed in myself, Act only soar, As long as I can still take care of you from here.

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Every path is the path of doom, except one: our own; therefore, everyone should go their own way.

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If we accumulate wealth for ourselves or our descendants, if we found a family or a state, if we even gain fame, all this proves that we were only mortal; but if we deal with truth, we are immortal.

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Once we read that someone was killed, robbed, or was the victim of an accident, that a house burned down, that a ship ran aground, or that a steamer's boiler exploded, or that a cow was run over on the Western Railway, or that a rabid dog was shot dead, or that grasshoppers appeared in the middle of winter and in the countryside, then we can get by with this, we don't have to read more similar news. If we are aware of the principle, why multiply the examples? In the eyes of the philosopher, all newspapers are gossip, and those who publish them, those who read them, are so many tea-stirring old women.

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I have often observed that a poet departed, taking with him the most valuable part of a farm, while the sullen farmer thought he had only plundered a few scraps. But the farmer often has no idea for years that the poet took his farm into a poem, that is, drove it into an invisible pen, milked it, skimmed it, kept all its color for himself, and left only the skimmed milk for the farmer.

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It can easily be that the person who devotes the most time and money to helping the poor, with his lifestyle, does the most to create the misery that he is working in vain to eradicate.

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He who lives in trust will cooperate with everyone with equal trust, wherever he goes; however, in whom there is no trust, no matter where he falls, he will only continue to live in the same way as the others.

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I wouldn't talk about myself so much if there was someone else in the world whom I know so well.

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The language of friendship is not words, but meanings.

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I have never found a companion that was better company than solitude.

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We can only begin to truly know when we have completely forgotten everything we were taught. I am not even a hair's breadth closer to knowing the object as long as I live under the assumption that my relationship to an object is determined by a scientist. In order to get to know an object, I have to approach it as something completely foreign.

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Read all the good books first or you won't get to read them at all.

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The most I can do for my friend is to be his friend. I have no wealth to help otherwise. And if he knows that I am happy and satisfied with his friendship, he does not want anything else in return.

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If a woman isn't keeping up with her peers, it might be because she's listening to a different drummer. Let him march to the beat of his music, no matter how slow, no matter how distant.

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He who destroys time definitely damages eternity.

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We surrender so sincerely and completely to our way of life that we deny the possibility of change.

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Friends... those who feed each other's hopes. The other's dream is equally dear to them.

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Success usually knocks on the door of those who are too busy to look for it.

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Every blessed morning, he cheerfully encouraged me to make my life as simple, or perhaps I should say: innocent, as Nature itself.

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Stand firm on your path, even if the world labels it as wrong, which is more than likely.

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Anyone who wants to find fault will find it in Eden.

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Can a greater miracle be imagined than if we could look at the world through each other's eyes for a moment?

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Protecting the world starts with forests.

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What is important is not how far a person has traveled, but how well he lives.

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A person who lives in nature cannot really experience black grief.

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Let's experience the passing seasons; let us breathe its air, sip its nectar, taste its fruit, and surrender ourselves to the power of the earth!

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Today, most people can read enough to satisfy their everyday needs, just as they know how to count enough to keep accounts and not be cheated in business; but as far as reading is concerned, they have little or no idea about it, and we can only say reading in the highest sense of the word, if we don't read something that dazzles, excites, and lulls our higher faculties to sleep for a while, but something that requires us to go on tiptoe, to overcome with reason, to which we must devote our most alert, freshest hours.

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Old age is not as good a teacher as youth, because it has learned less than it has forgotten.

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To change the character of our day: this is the highest of arts.

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If we build castles in the air, they will not necessarily be lost; they are where they should be. Now we just need to build foundations.

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When I listen to music, I am not afraid of anything, I am invulnerable, I know no enemies, and I am in infinite harmony with the most distant past and the present.

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The terrible wilderness is not really terrible, it only becomes so in the traveler's imagination.

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The beast in man never completely disappears.

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I have experienced that the fastest person travels on foot. I say to my friend: let's compete, which one of us gets there first. The distance is thirty miles, the fare ninety cents. That's almost a full day. I still remember that workers were paid sixty cents per day during the construction of this railway line. Well, I'll set out on foot this minute, and get there by evening; I've been walking at this pace for weeks. In the meantime, my friend is looking for travel expenses and will be there sometime tomorrow, or maybe late tonight if he's lucky enough to get a decent job.

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The lifestyle that people praise and consider successful is only one of the possible lifestyles. Why do we exaggerate the importance of one at the expense of the others?

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It's never too late to give up our prejudices. We should not accept any mode of action or thought without examination, no matter how ancient.

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It is doubtful whether even the wisest man has ever learned anything of absolute value in his lifetime.

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Don't just look for heaven above; it may be lying at your feet.

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The crowd never rises to the level of its best member, on the contrary: it sinks to the level of its worst member.

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The world we live in is not so much comfortable as it is wonderful, not so useful as it is beautiful, therefore we must first gaze upon it and enjoy it before we can use it.

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Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

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What old people say you can't do, just try and you will find that you can. For an old man are old deeds, for the young are young deeds.

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There are things that in certain circles - the circles of the sick and the helpless - are regarded as necessities of life, in other circles as luxuries, and in others they are completely unknown.

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If I regret anything, it's my good behavior so far. What kind of devil made me behave well?

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To be a philosopher is not only to have lofty thoughts or to found a school, but to love wisdom in such a way that we live at its command in simplicity, independence, generosity, and trust. Being a philosopher means solving some of life's problems, not only in theory, but in practice.

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Kings and queens who only wear a dress once, even though it is tailored to their size by a court tailor, cannot even imagine how comfortable it is to wear a suit that is tailored to your body. After all, they are just like hangers on which we hang clean things.

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I have never in my life esteemed any man less because he wears patched clothes, yet I am convinced that people generally take more care to wear fashionable, or at least spotless, new clothes, than to have a clean conscience.

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Our house is such a cumbersome, "immovable" thing that it is often more like a prison than a shelter.

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I myself would rather sit on a large pumpkin by myself than be anxious on a velvet cushion. I'd rather ride an oxcart in the fresh air than go to heaven in a dingy coach of an excursion train and breathe in stench the whole time.

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Man knows - he believes this, and lo, he lets his wings fly beside him: art and science, and a load of supplies; and all that anyone knows who lives is just a stray wind.

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A man builds his house in the same way as a bird builds its nest, and who knows if a man also built his house with both hands of ownership, and obtained food for himself and his family through a similar simple and honest process, would he not develop universally in it? the poetic talent, in the same way as the birds without exception all sing, when are they busy with such things? But alas, we behave like the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in a nest laid by another bird, and does not cheer up the wanderer with its agitated, tuneless voice. Why do we leave the joy of construction to the carpenter?

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People are delusional. Not long after, the better part of them is plowed into the ground, as fertilizer. As a result of compulsion commonly called necessity and mistakenly interpreted as fate, they deal with collecting treasures that - to use the words of an old book - will be eaten by moths and rust, and will become the prey of thieves and thieves. It is foolish to live like this, and everyone realizes this in the end, if not before.

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What you pay the most for is never what the student needs most. Education, for example, is a serious item in the half-year budget, while nothing is counted for the much more valuable education that comes from living with educated contemporaries.