Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
- Henry David Thoreau

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau

What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?
- Henry David Thoreau

Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.
- Henry David Thoreau

In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
- Henry David Thoreau

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
- Henry David Thoreau

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
- Henry David Thoreau

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
- Henry David Thoreau

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
- Henry David Thoreau

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man’s nobler faculties.
- Henry David Thoreau

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?
- Henry David Thoreau

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.
- Henry David Thoreau

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
- Henry David Thoreau

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
- Henry David Thoreau

My friend is one… who take me for what I am.
- Henry David Thoreau

Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.
- Henry David Thoreau

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
- Henry David Thoreau

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
- Henry David Thoreau

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
- Henry David Thoreau

Men have become the tools of their tools.
- Henry David Thoreau

Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.
- Henry David Thoreau

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
- Henry David Thoreau

I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau

Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
- Henry David Thoreau

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.
- Henry David Thoreau

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.
- Henry David Thoreau

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
- Henry David Thoreau

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
- Henry David Thoreau

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
- Henry David Thoreau

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau

Faith never makes a confession.
- Henry David Thoreau