Henry David Thoreau quotes

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Men have become the tools of their tools.”

— 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

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“The heart is forever inexperienced.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”

— Henry David Thoreau

“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”

— Henry David Thoreau