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Henry David Thoreau

141 quotes

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an American essayist, poet, and philosopher best known for his book *Walden*, a reflection on simple living in natural surroundings. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau championed individualism, civil disobedience, and a deep reverence for nature that continues to influence environmentalists and free thinkers to this day.

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Motivational

All Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Life

“Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Truth

“God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.”

— Henry David Thoreau

God

“I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Best

“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Government

“The law will never make a man free it is men who have got to make the law free.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Men

“I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Death

“Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Faith

“There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Life

“Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!”

— Henry David Thoreau

Beauty

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Life

“Be not simply good - be good for something.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Good

“Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Best

“Men are born to succeed, not to fail.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Men

“No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Alone

“The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Morning

“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Experience

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Men

“The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Best

“A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Friendship