Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

When it's time to die, let us not discover that we have never lived.

Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.

Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.

You cannot hear music and noise at the same time.

I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway.

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

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

I cannot read a single word of the Hindoos without being elevated.

I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert.

The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

Time cannot bend the line which God has writ.

The Slothful do not have the time to become virtuous or despicable.

Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans.

How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?

Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.

We discover a new world every time we see the earth again after it has been covered for a season with snow.

Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit.

The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day.

A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet drink and botanical medicines.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

Many old people receive pensions for no other reason, it seems to me, but as a compensation for having lived a long time ago.