Quotes from Henry David Thoreau
If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.
— Henry David Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let our affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand...Simplify, simplify!
— Henry David Thoreau
There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.
— Henry David Thoreau
Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.
— Henry David Thoreau
We cannot put a noose around another man's neck without first hanging ourselves.
— Henry David Thoreau
Some show their kindness to the poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed themselves there?
— Henry David Thoreau
The richest gifts we can bestow are the least marketable. We hate the kindness which we understand.
— Henry David Thoreau
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
— Henry David Thoreau
Live free, child of the mist,- and with respect to knowledge we are allchildren of the mist.
— Henry David Thoreau
. . . we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
— Henry David Thoreau
I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified.
— Henry David Thoreau
For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free; otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect.
— Henry David Thoreau