Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Whate'er we leave to God, God does and blesses us.

Let us not, my friends, be wheedled and cheated into good behavior to earn the salt of our eternal porridge, whoever they are that attempt it. Let us wait a little, and not purchase any clearing here, trusting that richer bottoms will soon be put up. It is but thin soil where we stand; I have felt my roots in a richer ere than this.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

They who are at work abroad are not cold, but rather it is they who sit shivering in houses.

The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease.

They who are at work abroad are not cold, but rather it is they who sit shivering in houses. As with temperatures, so with flavors; as with cold and heat, so with sour and sweet.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles.

None of the brute creation requires more than Food and Shelter

La massa degli uomini conduce una vita di quieta disperazione; quella che si chiama rassegnazione è disperazione istituzionalizzata.

Když do sebe se zhloubi zahledíÅ¡, bezpo?et krajin uvidíÅ¡ – le? neobjevených. Nu, projdi je a sta? se znalcem vlastní kosmografie!

It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent;

Never look back unless ypu are planning to go that way.

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

but a goose is a goose still

It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment on your dish, and it will poison you.

Noi non veneriamo né le Grazie né le Parche, ma la Moda.

Nor wars did men molest, When only beechen bowls were in request.

Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature.

No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, [...] compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?

Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, wether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain.

Je souhaiterais rappeler à mes compatriotes qu'il sont avant tout des hommes, et qu'ils ne sont des Américains qu'en second lieu. Qu'importe une loi qui protège vos biens et qui préserve votre âme et votre corps, si elle ne vous maintient pas dans les rangs du genre humain.

Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster, both intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very late, he honestly slumbered a fool's allowance.

Y quizá sería bueno que pasáramos más de nuestros días y noches sin que mediara obstáculo alguno entre nosotros y los cuerpos celestes, y que el poeta no hablara tanto bajo techado o que el santo no se acogiera con tanta frecuencia a su protección.

Nor is it every apple I desire,      Nor that which pleases every palate best; 'T is not the lasting Deuxan I require,      Nor yet the red-cheeked Greening I request, Nor that which first beshrewed the name of wife, Nor that whose beauty caused the golden strife: No, no! bring me an apple from the tree of life.