"Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so."

Thoreau, Henry David on morality   

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."

Thoreau, Henry David on liberty
3 fans of this quote   

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

Thoreau, Henry David on life
7 fans of this quote   

"There is no remedy for love than to love more."

Thoreau, Henry David on love
29 fans of this quote   

"Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame."

Thoreau, Henry David on love
13 fans of this quote   

"The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed."

Thoreau, Henry David on mediocrity
5 fans of this quote   

"Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them."

Thoreau, Henry David on memory   

"The only wealth is life."

Thoreau, Henry David on money
3 fans of this quote   

"Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul."

Thoreau, Henry David on money   

"It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive."

Thoreau, Henry David on imagination
7 fans of this quote   

"To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle."

Thoreau, Henry David on idleness
3 fans of this quote   

"That government is best which governs least."

Thoreau, Henry David on government
3 fans of this quote   

"In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high."

Thoreau, Henry David on goals
4 fans of this quote   

"None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm"

Thoreau, Henry David on age and aging
5 fans of this quote   

"The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them."

Thoreau, Henry David on age and aging   

"I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it."

Thoreau, Henry David on generations
3 fans of this quote   

"True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance."

Thoreau, Henry David on friends and friendship
10 fans of this quote   

"Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something."

Thoreau, Henry David on advice
34 fans of this quote   

"If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?"

Thoreau, Henry David on desire
6 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Thoreau, Henry David on desperation
20 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe."

Thoreau, Henry David on doubt
12 fans of this quote   

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

Thoreau, Henry David on dream
23 fans of this quote   

"Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake."

Thoreau, Henry David on dream
24 fans of this quote   

"For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it."

Thoreau, Henry David on duty   

"You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds."

Thoreau, Henry David on eccentricity
20 fans of this quote   

"The heart is forever inexperienced."

Thoreau, Henry David on emotions
15 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains."

Thoreau, Henry David on eternity
5 fans of this quote   

"My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologies. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought -- with these I deal."

Thoreau, Henry David on facts   

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life... I wanted to live so sturdily and so Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life... to drive life into a corner to know it by experience and be able to give an account of it in my next excursion."

Thoreau, Henry David on life
7 fans of this quote