Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.

I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, ...., we never need read of another. One is enough. If you're acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old (wo)men over their tea.

Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house

By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.

Sigue un camino, aunque sea estrecho y torcido, en el que puedas caminar con amor y reverencia. / Este mundo no es sino un lienzo para nuestra imaginación.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side, Withstand the winter's storm, And spite of wind and tide, Grow up the meadow's pride, For both are strong. Above they barely touch, but undermined Down to their deepest source, Admiring you shall find Their roots are intertwined Insep'rably.

It is difficult to being without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise.

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. T

The same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes.

while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably

What a different aspect will courage put upon the face of things!

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

I rejoice that there are owls.

Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was.

We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre.

What is once well done is forever

What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.

What should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?

do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?