Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Quotes

• Most men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them.

• It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

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

• Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!

• Men have become the tools of their tools.

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

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

• That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

• [Water is] the only drink for a wise man.

• It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

• How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

• Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

• Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

• Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.

• 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.

• He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.

• There is no remedy for love but to love more.

• What people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.

• If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

• Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.