3,409 Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

The silence rings—it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible—I hear the unspeakable.

The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.

Your church is a baby-house made of blocks.

My soul and body have tottered along together of late, tripping and hindering one another like unpracticed Siamese twins.

Warum leben wir in solcher Hast, mit solcher Vergeudung von Leben? Wir glauben, Hungers zu sterben, bevor wir hungrig sind. Es heißt, "ein Stich zur rechten Zeit erspart neun andere" - also werden lieber gleich tausend Stiche gemacht, um neun für den nächsten Tag zu ersparen.

In an unjust society the only place for a just man is prison.