American - Author & Philosopher|July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862
50 FAMOUS QUOTES · AUTHOR & PHILOSOPHER
Read 50 genuine Henry David Thoreau quotes on simplicity, nature, dreams, freedom and living deliberately from the author of Walden and Civil Disobedience.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”Henry David Thoreau
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”Henry David Thoreau
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”Henry David Thoreau
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”Henry David Thoreau
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”Henry David Thoreau
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”Henry David Thoreau
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”Henry David Thoreau
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”Henry David Thoreau
“Things do not change; we change.”Henry David Thoreau
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”Henry David Thoreau
“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”Henry David Thoreau
“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavour.”Henry David Thoreau
“To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”Henry David Thoreau
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”Henry David Thoreau
“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”Henry David Thoreau
“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?”Henry David Thoreau
“Be not simply good; be good for something.”Henry David Thoreau
“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”Henry David Thoreau
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”Henry David Thoreau
“Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.”Henry David Thoreau
“I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.”Henry David Thoreau
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”Henry David Thoreau
“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”Henry David Thoreau
“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”Henry David Thoreau
“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.”Henry David Thoreau
American - Author & Philosopher | July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American essayist, poet, naturalist and philosopher, born in Concord, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard in 1837, he became a close friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and a leading voice of Transcendentalism, a movement that celebrated nature, self-reliance and the inner life.
In 1845 Thoreau built a small cabin near Walden Pond and lived there for two years, two months and two days, an experiment in simple living that he described in his classic book *Walden* (1854). After spending a night in jail for refusing to pay a tax that supported slavery and the Mexican-American War, he wrote the essay "Civil Disobedience," which later inspired Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 44. Here are 50 of the best Henry David Thoreau quotes.
Quick answers about Henry David Thoreau and these famous quotes.
Henry David Thoreau was a 19th-century American writer, naturalist and philosopher from Concord, Massachusetts. He is best known for *Walden* and the essay "Civil Disobedience."
*Walden* (1854) describes the two years Thoreau spent living simply in a small cabin he built near Walden Pond. It reflects on nature, self-reliance and how to live a meaningful life without unnecessary possessions.
In 1846 Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax, in protest against slavery and the Mexican-American War. The experience led to his famous essay "Civil Disobedience."
Thoreau's idea of peacefully refusing to obey unjust laws inspired later leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi in India's independence movement and Martin Luther King Jr. in the American civil rights movement.
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see," "Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after" and "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it" don't appear in his writings. "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined" is a modern rewording of a longer line from *Walden*.
Transcendentalism was a 19th-century American movement led by Ralph Waldo Emerson and others. It emphasised the goodness of people and nature, the importance of intuition and self-reliance, and the value of living according to one's own conscience.