Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Our last deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity.

Be it life or death, we crave only reality.

...A traveller is to be reverenced as such. His profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from - toward; it is the history of every one of us. It is a great art to saunter.

Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life?

The cost of a thing is something called life which is given in exchange for it.

In their daily life, all are braver than they know.

The scenery when it is truly seen reacts on the life of the seer.

I feel as if my life had grown more outward when I can express it.

I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past

Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, which in others are luxuries merely and in others still are entirely unknown.

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage.

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.

On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher.

The constant abrasion and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth.

I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface ofthings. We think that that is which appears to be.

If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?

Don't get to the end of your life and realize you have never lived.

I pray that the life of this spring and summer may ever lie fair in my memory.

Sometimes you have to leave the world in order to learn how to live in it. Thoreau shunned society, went to the woods, and came back with a new understanding of life.

They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.

It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.

The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.

Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.