Quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Heaven might be defined as the place which men avoid.

Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.

Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are.

Sweep away the clutter of things that complicate our lives.

None can lead this life who are not almost amphibious.

Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

Surely joy is the condition of life.

As to conforming outwardly and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that.

Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping.

Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moonnor firefly has shown me the causeway to it.

So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.

If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who have understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,-who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.

Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

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

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.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.