Quotes from Thoreau

I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things.

It is a great art to saunter.

Who hears the fishes when they cry?

Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.

I am freighted with thought.

I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one- but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature,- daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,- rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?...

it behooves us old stagers to keep our lamps trimmed and burning to the last, and not trust to the sun's looming. Thoreau, Henry David. The Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau: Canoeing in the Wilderness, Walden, Walking, Civil Disobedience and More (Kindle Locations 12226-12227). . Kindle Edition.

In the last stage of civilization, Poetry, Religion, and Philosophy will be one.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder…

With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses.

What I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics. ... Such a rule ... draws lines through the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man's particular daily behaviors ... where they intersect will be the height or depth of his character.

There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look... To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.