Henry David Thoreau

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

—Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

—Henry David Thoreau

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

—Henry David Thoreau

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.

—Henry David Thoreau

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

—Henry David Thoreau

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

—Henry David Thoreau

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

—Henry David Thoreau

It is never too late to give up your prejudices.

—Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

—Henry David Thoreau

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

—Henry David Thoreau

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

—Henry David Thoreau

It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.

—Henry David Thoreau

Things do not change; we change.

—Henry David Thoreau

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

—Henry David Thoreau

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

—Henry David Thoreau

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

—Henry David Thoreau

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

—Henry David Thoreau

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

—Henry David Thoreau

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

—Henry David Thoreau

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

—Henry David Thoreau

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

—Henry David Thoreau

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.

—Henry David Thoreau

All good things are wild and free.

—Henry David Thoreau

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

—Henry David Thoreau

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

—Henry David Thoreau

What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?

—Henry David Thoreau

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

—Henry David Thoreau

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

—Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately..

—Henry David Thoreau

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

—Henry David Thoreau