Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost.

Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?—for the nobler plants are valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from the ground

I occasionally observed that he was thinking for himself and expressing his own opinion - a phenomenon so rare that I would walk any day ten miles to observe it.

pues el hombre acepta no lo que es verdaderamente respetable sino lo respetado!

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

I think that he should keep a caravansary on the world's highway, where philosophers of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be printed, "Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage.

A written word is the choicest of relics.

If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.

If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!

Books] in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institutions?—such call I good books.

Who ever saw his old clothes, — his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who could do with less?

La inmensa mayoría son hombres de sociedad. Viven en la superficie, les interesa lo transitorio y lo breve. Son como madera de deriva en al riada. Sólo piden las novedades: la espuma y la cochambre del mar eterno.

A maior parte das coisas que meus semelhantes consideram boas, creio no fundo da alma que são más, e se de alguma coisa me arrependo é provável que seja do meu bom comportamento. Que diabo se apossou de mim para que me comportasse tão bem?

he details a cost-analysis of the entire construction project. In order to make a little money, Thoreau cultivates a modest bean-field, a job that tends to occupy his mornings. He reserves his afternoons and evenings for reflection, reading, and walking about the countryside.

A man is not his hope, nor his despair, nor yet his past deed. We know not yet what we have done, still less what we are doing. Wait till evening, and other parts of our day's work will shine than we had thought at noon, and we shall discover the real purport of our toil. As when the farmer has reached the end of the furrow and looks back, he can tell best where the pressed earth shines most.

Seria ótimo, quem sabe, se pudéssemos passar um pouco mais dos dias e das noites sem nenhum obstáculo entre nós e os corpos celestes, se o poeta não falasse tanto à sombra de um telhado ou o santo não morasse entre quatro paredes por tanto tempo. As aves não cantam dentro das grutas, nem as pombas cuidam de sua inocência nos pombais.

Bankruptcy and repudiation are the spring-boards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.

A penny to your thoughts, or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers live of their stores not best all the forenoon, but all of the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so lots of them—as though the legs had been made to take a seat upon, and now not to face or walk upon—I suppose that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.