3,409 Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

We are more of the earth,Farther from heaven these days.

There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony.

He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

Perhaps this was the first instance of that quiet way of "speaking for" a place not yet occupied, or at least not improved as much as it may be, which their descendants have practised, and are still practising so extensively. Not Any seems to have been the sole proprietor of all America before the Yankees [...] At any rate, I know that if you hold a thing unjustly, there will surely be the devil to pay at last.

Nowadays, men wear a fool's-cap, and call it a liberty-cap. I do not know but there are some who, if they were tied to a whipping-post, and could but get one hand free, would use it to ring the bells and fire the cannons to celebrate THEIR liberty. So some of my townsmen took the liberty to ring and fire. That was the extent of their freedom; and when the sound of the bells died away, their liberty died away also; when the powder was all expended, their liberty went off with the smoke.