3,409 Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

When some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have answered yes-- remembering that it was one of the best parts of my education-- make them hunters.

Invariably our best nights were those when it rained.

Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man's nobler faculties.

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution - such call I good books.

The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond.

If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life.

For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.

We perceive that the schemers return again and again to common sense and labor. Such is the evidence of history.

Keep up the fires of thought, and all will go well.