Henry David Thoreau Quotes – Words of Wisdom and Inspiration

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Our lives are frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.

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.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

If one advances confidently in the direction of one’s dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Let us rather be a voice than an echo.

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.

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you; but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

The world is but a canvas to our imagination.

It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?

Henry David Thoreau Quotes – Words of Wisdom and Inspiration part 2

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

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

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.

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.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.

Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

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.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Things do not change; we change.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

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.

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.