3,409 Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes split into quarters - which grind on each other. Not only individuals but states have thus a confirmed dyspepsia.

To have made even one person's life a little better, that is to succeed.

I love the broad margin to my life.

We never exchange more than three words with a Friend in our lives on that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise.

There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.

When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed anddrawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men,--those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.

All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an inhabitant of the land and all its products have a certain fabulous quality, as if they belonged to another planet.

The only danger in Friendship is that it will end.

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.