Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?

A mennyekbe sóvárgunk? – hisz a Földnek is szégyenére válunk!

For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence.

And Elijah Wood, I fear for no good:

To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come.

Seit vielen Jahren haben sich nunmehr die Menschen in den Wald begeben, um Brenn- und Baustoffe zu beschaffen. Der Neuengländer und der Neuholländer, der Pariser und der Kelte, der Bauer und Robin Hood, Goody Blake und Harry Gill, in den meisten Teilen der Welt der Fürst und der Landmann, der Gelehrte und der Wilde, alle brauchen gleichermaßen ein paar Zweiglein aus dem Wald, um sich zu wärmen und ihr Essen zu kochen. Auch ich kam nicht ohne aus.

How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency.

Es un disparate intentar educar a los hijos dentro de una ciudad. El primer paso ha de ser sacarlos de ella.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined

My residence was more favorable, not only to thought, but to serious reading, than a university;

instant. Confucius said, To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I

The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another.

My life more civil is and free Than any civil polity Ye princes, keep your realms And circumscribed power Not wide as are my dreams Nor rich as is this hour

Yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.

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

The dullest soul cannot go upon such an expedition without some of the spirit of adventure; as if he had stolen the boat of Charon and gone down the Styx on a midnight expedition into the realms of Pluto.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy looking for it.

Nature, smiling,] seems to say sternly, why came ye here before your time? This ground is not prepared for you. Is it not enough that I smile in the valleys? I have never made this soil for thy feet, this air for thy breathing, these rocks for thy neighbors.