The quotations of

Henry David Thoreau

American essayist, poet, and philosopher

1817–1862

81 quotes, most often on Life & Death, Government and Money. Part of the Writers collection.

A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.
Life Without Principle (1863), p. 488
- Wisdom
The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?
Walden (1854), Economy (1 of 3)In context
- Morality
- Virtue
There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
Walden (1854), Economy (1 of 3)In context
- Philosophy
- Wisdom
But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.
Walden (1854), Economy (2 of 3)In context
- Technology
We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.
Walden (1854), Economy (2 of 3)In context
- Talking
- Technology
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
Walden (1854), Where I Lived, and What I Lived ForIn context
- Inspiration
- Life & Death
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.
Walden (1854), Where I Lived, and What I Lived ForIn context
- Life & Death
- Nature
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life
Walden (1854), Where I Lived, and What I Lived ForIn context
- Life & Death
Our life is frittered away by detail.
Walden (1854), Where I Lived, and What I Lived ForIn context
- Life & Death
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.
Walden (1854), Where I Lived, and What I Lived ForIn context
- Advice
- Life & Death
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Walden (1854), ReadingIn context
- Reading
I love a broad margin to my life.
Walden (1854), SoundsIn context
- Life & Death
- Time
I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.
Walden (1854), SolitudeIn context
- Friendship
- Thinking
I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.
Walden (1854), Higher LawsIn context
- Animals
- Food
I heartily accept the motto,⁠—“That government is best which governs least;” and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe⁠—“That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- Freedom
- Government

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