Quotes from Henry David Thoreau
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, — that is your success.
- Henry David Thoreau
Good for the body is the work of the body, and good for the soul, the work of the soul, and good for either, the work of the other.
- Henry David Thoreau
We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice.
- Henry David Thoreau
I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.
- Henry David Thoreau
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
- Henry David Thoreau
If the work is high and far, You must not only aim aright, But draw the bow with all your might.
- Henry David Thoreau
He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.
- Henry David Thoreau
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau
Art is not tame, and Nature is not wild, in the ordinary sense. A perfect work of man's art would also be wild or natural in a good sense.
- Henry David Thoreau
If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.
- Henry David Thoreau
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
- Henry David Thoreau
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- Henry David Thoreau