Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make the bones with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying himself 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.

It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow unless he sweats easier than I do.

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

Those whom we can love, we can hate to others we are indifferent.

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

As if our birth had at first sundered things, and we had been thrust up through into nature like a wedge, and not till the wound heals and the scar disappears, do we begin to discover where we are, and that nature is one and continuous everywhere.

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.

As for doing good, that is one of the professions which are full.

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

The vessel, though her masts be firm,Beneath her copper bears a worm.

There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment.

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.