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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Simple living4 quotes
Our life is frittered away by detail…. Simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854I 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 · 1854I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship; three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. — Henry David Thoreau · 1856Man and nature3 quotes
If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! — Henry David Thoreau · 1862We can never have enough of nature…. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. — Henry David Thoreau · 1853Nature3 quotes
In Wildness is the preservation of the World. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851Wilderness3 quotes
Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851In Wildness is the preservation of the World. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851Do-gooders and busybodies2 quotes
As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Materialism2 quotes
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Personal growth2 quotes
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Political theory2 quotes
I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least";... Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all." — Henry David Thoreau · 1848All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. — Henry David Thoreau · 1848Anarchism1 quote
I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least";... Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all." — Henry David Thoreau · 1848Attachment (Buddhism)1 quote
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Being oneself1 quote
Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Being present1 quote
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. — Henry David Thoreau · 1853Being true to oneself1 quote
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Can vs. should1 quote
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end... We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Changing oneself1 quote
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Citizenship1 quote
The fate of the country...does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Civilization1 quote
I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851Civilization and nature1 quote
Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851Courage1 quote
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Criticism from others1 quote
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Downsides of education1 quote
What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook. — Henry David Thoreau · 1850Downsides of progress1 quote
We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Education1 quote
What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook. — Henry David Thoreau · 1850Environmental destruction1 quote
By avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property...the landscape is deformed. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Following your dreams1 quote
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Goals1 quote
In the long run men hit only what they aim at. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Good writing1 quote
A sentence should read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end. — Henry David Thoreau · 1849Human nature1 quote
I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. — Henry David Thoreau · 1851Injustice1 quote
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison... The only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. — Henry David Thoreau · 1848