3,409 Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts.

Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. Why, nature is but another name for health.

What great interval is there between him who is caught in Africa and made a plantation slave of in the South, and him who is caught in New England and made a Unitarian minister of?

How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology.

Alas! this is the crying sin of the age, this want of faith in the prevalence of a man. Nothing can be effected but by one man. Hewho wants help wants everything. True, this is the condition of our weakness, but it can never be the means of our recovery. We must first succeed alone, that we may enjoy our success together.

I was daily intoxicated, yet no man could call me intemperate.

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

We are more anxious to speak than to be heard.