Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes I would rather get a transient glimpse or side view of a thing than stand fronting to it… The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time, is infinitely suggestive, and I do not care to front it and scrutinize it, for I know that the thing that really concerns me is not there, but in my relation to that…

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.

O que um homem pensa de si, eis o que determina, ou pelo menos indica, o seu destino.

Dù s?ng hay ch?t, chúng ta ch? khao khát cái th?t. N?u chúng ta Ä'ang th?t sá»± ch?t, chúng ta hãy nghe ti?ng n?c h?p h?i trong c? h?ng, và c?m th?y l?nh ? t? chi; n?u chúng ta Ä'ang s?ng, chúng ta hãy Ä'i làm công vi?c c?a mình.

For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done for ever.

Mientras que la civilización ha ido mejorando nuestro habitat, no ha hecho igual con los hombres que han de poblarlo. Ha creado palacios, pero no era tan fácil crear nobles y reyes. Y si los objetivos que persigue el hombre civilizado no tienen más valor que los del salvaje, si empeña la mayor parte de su vida en la satisfacción de necesidades no imprescindibles y de meras comodidades, ¿por qué ha de tener una morada mejor que la de aquél?

But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried.

Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become a fiction of the past—as it is to some extent a fiction of the present—the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology.

Lidé dospÄ›li tak daleko, že ?asto strádají ne z nedostatku vÄ›cí potÃ…â"¢ebných, nýbrž z nedostatku vÄ›cí nadbyte?ných.

Most men are satisfied if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading

We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire.

I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well.

I think that having learned our letters we should read the best that is in literature, and not be forever repeating our a b abs, and words of one syllable, in the fourth or fifth classes, sitting on the lowest and foremost form all our lives. Most men are satisfied if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book, the Bible, and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading.

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. They have

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in.

It is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel.

La legge non ha mai reso gli uomini neppure poco più giusti; e anzi, a causa del rispetto della legge, perfino gli onesti sono quotidianamente trasformati in agenti d'ingiustizia.

The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind.

Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us!

Ciò che un uomo pensa di se stesso, è quello che determina, o piuttosto indica, il suo destino.

While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.