3,409 Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,Mthat was what distinguished him.

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.

Youth gets together with their materials to build a bridge to the moon or maybe a palace on earth; then in middle age they decide to build a woodshed with them instead.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

We do not live by justice, but by grace.

Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations tomen; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine.

What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that practically I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all.

They take great pride in making their dinner cost much; I take my pride in making my dinner cost so little.