Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

All great enterprises are self-supporting.

I delight to come to my bearings,... not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but stand or sitthoughtfully while it goes by.

Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them.

To act collectively is according to the spirit of our institutions.

The Indian's intercourse with Nature is at least such as admits of the greatest independence of each.

I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.

Things do not change; we change.

When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.

I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

It is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminatedmoments are.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

Look not to legislatures and churches for your guidance, nor to any soulless incorporated bodies, but to inspirited or inspired ones.

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.

If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.

Man emulates earth Earth emulates heaven Heaven emulates the Way The way emulates nature.

The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence.

In my cheapest moments I am apt to think that it is n't my business to be "seeking the spirit," but as much its business to be seeking me.

Seeds, there are seeds enough which need only be stirred in with the soil where they lie, by an inspired voice or pen, to bear fruit of a divine flavor.

We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.

A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.

It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.