Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

We are constantly invited to be what we are.

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.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

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

Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.

How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

We cannot put a noose around another man's neck without first hanging ourselves.

We hate the kindness which we understand.

The kindness I have longest remembered has been of this sort, the sort unsaid; so far behind the speaker's lips that almost it already lay in my heart. It did not have far to go to be communicated.

True kindness is a pure divine affinity, Not founded upon human consanguinity. It is a spirit, not a blood relation, Superior to family and station.

Some show their kindness to the poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed themselves there?

The richest gifts we can bestow are the least marketable. We hate the kindness which we understand.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?

If I am not I, who will be?

Live free, child of the mist,- and with respect to knowledge we are allchildren of the mist.

. . . we should be men first, and subjects afterward.

I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified.

I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect...always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished.

I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor.

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.