Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

I do not know at first what it is that harms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to be fairer and truer in to-morrow's memory.

But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.

Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him.

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the character of individuals.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

Love must be as much a light as a flame.

[Silence] is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality disturb us.

It were vain for me to endeavor to interrupt the Silence. She cannot be done into English. For six thousand years men have translated her with what fidelity belonged to each, and still she is little better than a sealed book. A man may run on confidently for a time, thinking he has her under his thumb, and shall one day exhaust her, but he too must at last be silent...

As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence.

The orator... is... most eloquent when most silent.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail... Simplify, simplify.

In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

An unclean person is universally a slothful one.

It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain.

A man of fine perceptions is more truly feminine than a merely sentimental woman.

I derive no pleasure from talking with a young woman simply because she has regular features.

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.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos...