Quotes by Henry David Thoreau
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
- Henry David Thoreau
What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau
A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it.
- Henry David Thoreau
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
- Henry David Thoreau
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau
Not till we are completely lost or turned around… do we begin to find ourselves.
- Henry David Thoreau
We are born as innocents. We are polluted by advice.
- Henry David Thoreau
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
- Henry David Thoreau
You cannot dream yourself into a character: you must hammer and forge yourself into one.
- Henry David Thoreau
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
- Henry David Thoreau
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- 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
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau
Things do not change; we change.
- Henry David Thoreau