Quotes
Quotes - Thoreau
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.
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.
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?
Things do not change; we change.
Things do not change, we do.
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind.
If you give money, spend yourself with it.
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.
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 which he hears, however measured or far away.
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.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation ... A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
If one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
