Quotes from Henry David Thoreau
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots.
- Henry David Thoreau
Misfortunes occur only when a man is false.... Events, circumstances, etc., have their origin in ourselves. They spring from seeds which we have sown.
- Henry David Thoreau
Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can?
- Henry David Thoreau
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
- Henry David Thoreau
We like that 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
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
- Henry David Thoreau
To say that a man is your Friend means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy.
- Henry David Thoreau
A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.
- Henry David Thoreau
The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard.
- Henry David Thoreau
A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.
- Henry David Thoreau
No humane being... will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.
- Henry David Thoreau