Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

To stand on the meeting of two eternities; the past and future

There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life

Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable that no transcript of them has ever been made into any modern tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been printed in English, nor AEschylus, nor Virgil even—works as refined

So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give.

orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and health of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.

Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives;

but why not even by their power of abstract thought, that nations should seek to commemorate themselves?

AÃ…Â¥ je tv?j život sebemizernÄ›jÅ¡í, utkej se s ním, prožívej ho.

Fui a los bosques porque quería vivir deliberadamente, enfrentar solo los hechos esenciales de la vida, y ver si no podía aprender lo que ella tenia que enseñar, no sea que cuando estuviera por morir descubriera que no había vivido».

There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when the hunters are the best men, as the Algonquins called them. We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.

so long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconvenience, it is the will of God … that the established government be obeyed—and no longer. This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other.

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. Self-emancipation

The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.

None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.... To be a philosopher is not mere 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.

La mayoría de los hombres lleva vidas de tranquila desesperación. Lo que se llama resignación es desesperación confirmada.

The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life. Moreover, with wisdom we shall learn liberality.

Rather than Love, rather than Money, than Faith, than Fame, than Fairness, give me Truth.

The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them. They have only been read as the multitude read the stars, at most astrologically, not astronomically.

Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves—the union between themselves and the State—and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?

When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way.

One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with"; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

Confucius said, "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Si tuviera que vender mis mañanas y mis tardes a la sociedad, como hace la mayoría, estoy seguro de que no me quedaría nada por lo que vivir... No hay mayor equivocación que consumir la mayor parte de la vida en ganarse el sustento

It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure — if they are, indeed, so well off — to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives.