Quotes by Thoreau, Henry David

"A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight."

Thoreau, Henry David on minorities   

"The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it."

Thoreau, Henry David on mistakes   

"Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it."

Thoreau, Henry David on money   

"The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward."

Thoreau, Henry David on money   

"The only wealth is life."

Thoreau, Henry David on money
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"Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul."

Thoreau, Henry David on money   

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

Thoreau, Henry David on morality   

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

Thoreau, Henry David on morality   

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."

Thoreau, Henry David on morality
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"The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it."

Thoreau, Henry David on music   

"At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable."

Thoreau, Henry David on mystery   

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"If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone."

Thoreau, Henry David on names   

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"A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service."

Thoreau, Henry David on names   

"Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world."

Thoreau, Henry David on nations   

"We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander."

Thoreau, Henry David on nature   

"To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit it and read it are old women over their tea."

Thoreau, Henry David on news   

"Do what you love. Know you own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."

Thoreau, Henry David on passion
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"Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads."

Thoreau, Henry David on patriotism   

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"You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can."

Thoreau, Henry David on people
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"What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?"

Thoreau, Henry David on philosophers and philosophy   

"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."

Thoreau, Henry David on philosophers and philosophy   

"A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind."

Thoreau, Henry David on plays   

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"Poetry implies the whole truth, philosophy expresses only a particle of it."

Thoreau, Henry David on poetry and poets   

"Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech."

Thoreau, Henry David on poetry and poets   

"After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask."

Thoreau, Henry David on battles   

"Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel."

Thoreau, Henry David on politics   

"We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being."

Thoreau, Henry David on potential   

"Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth."

Thoreau, Henry David on poverty and the poor   

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"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment."

Thoreau, Henry David on present
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"I would not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well."

Thoreau, Henry David on pride
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"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."

Thoreau, Henry David on prison   

"There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

Thoreau, Henry David on problems
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"I respect not his labors, his farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars."

Thoreau, Henry David on profits   

"When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before."

Thoreau, Henry David on progress
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"The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it."

Thoreau, Henry David on property   

"I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases."

Thoreau, Henry David on protest   

"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate."

Thoreau, Henry David on public opinion   

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"The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond."

Thoreau, Henry David on purity   

"Many men go fishing their entire lives without knowing it is not fish they are after."

Thoreau, Henry David on purpose
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"Be not simply good; be good for something."

Thoreau, Henry David on purpose
3 fans of this quote