Henry David Thoreau Quotes

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.”

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

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

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?”

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

“Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.”

“The language of friendship is not words but meanings.”

“It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.”

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.”

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.”

“The bluebird carries the sky on his back.”

“There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.”

“It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.”

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.”

“Men have become the tools of their tools.”

“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.”

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”

“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

“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.”

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

“The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.”

“Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”