Quotes about Thoreau
This life is the one to be lived now, that much is crystal-clear. What did Thoreau supposedly say—'One world at a time'?
- John Updike
Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure
- Henry David Thoreau
Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.
- Henry David Thoreau
But the eyes, though they are no sailors, will never be satisfied with any model, however fashionable, which does not answer all the requisitions of art.
- Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau wrote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," and it seems nothing has changed.
- John Eldredge
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?
- Henry David Thoreau
I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints.
- Henry David Thoreau
There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.
- Henry David Thoreau
God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.
- Henry David Thoreau
Sobriety, severity, and self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality.
- Henry David Thoreau
Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
- Henry David Thoreau
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots.
- Henry David Thoreau