3,409 Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake.

Good religious men, with the love of men in their hearts, and the means to pay their toll in their pockets.

Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?

The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God.

For things to change, we must change.

There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man,--all whose bones can be bent! whose heaven-born virtues are but good manners!

Improve every opportunity to be melancholy.