Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness

When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and the most interminable, and to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter the swamp as a sacred place--a sanctum sanctorum; there is the strength, the marrow of Nature.

If we were required to know the position of the fruit dots or the character of the indusiumís, nothing could be easier to ascertain, but if it is required that you be affected by ferns, that they amount to anything, signify anything to you, that they be another sacred scripture and revelation to you, help to redeem your life, this end is not so easily accomplished.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

We can never have enough of nature.

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his souls estate.

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

Routine is a ground to stand on, a wall to retreat to; we cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.

Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

There can be no very black misery to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still.

People lead lives of quiet desperation.

I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.

Men are born to succeed, not fail.

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

Music is perpetual, and only the hearing is intermittent.

Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.