Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes it's easier to care for others than it is to care for yourself.

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought , and attended to my answer.

The language of friendship is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence about language.

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

The man for whom law exists -- the man of forms, the Conservative, is a tame man.

The man who goes alone can start today but he who travels with another must wait till the other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible And indescribably as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, A segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.

The world is but a canvas to the imagination.

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. - from Live Without Principle

Time is but the stream I go a-fishin in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It's thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish fill the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, an they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, not 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.

To reget deeply is to live afresh.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison . . . the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be. -- from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.

We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.