Quotes from 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.

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh hour of four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for.

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

When you knock, ask to see God — none of the servants.

What a singular fact for an angel visitant to this earth to carry back in his note-book, that men were forbidden to expose their bodies under the severest penalties!

Live the life you've dreamed.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

What is human warfare but just this an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.