Henry David Thoreau Lt Quotations

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness.

I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

He who parades his virtues seldom leads the parade. He who puts up with insult invites injury. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present.

A man's wealth is measured by what he doesn't need.

Hence it will not do for the Landlord to possess too fine a nature.... He must have no idiosyncracies, no particular bents or tendencies to this or that, but a general, uniform, and healthy development, such as his portly person indicates, offering himself equally on all sides to men.

There is nothing more difficult to find than oneself.

Wealth is measured by the level of experience in all aspects of life

At present the globe goes with a shattered constitution in its orbit.... No doubt the simple powers of nature, properly directed by man, would make it healthy and a paradise; as the laws of man's own constitution but wait to be obeyed, to restore him to health and happiness.

Our panaceas cure but few ails, our general hospitals are private and exclusive. We must set up another Hygeia than is now worshiped. Do not the quacks even direct small doses for children, larger for adults, and larger still for oxen and horses? Let us remember that we are to prescribe for the globe itself.

Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.

As for Clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility.

As for health, consider yourself well.

I have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt children, and at length gave them no peace. They did not know when to swallow their cud, and their lives of course yielded no milk.

We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure.

To speak or do anything that shall concern mankind, one must speak and act as if well, or from that grain of health which he has left.

I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say, when I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter.

Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savagestands on the unelastic plank of famine.

I am never rich in money, and I am never meanly poor.

To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery.

The same soil is good for men and for trees. A man's health requires as many acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck.

To the sick, indeed, nature is sick, but to the well, a fountain of health.

It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.

It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.

A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.

Alas! the culture of an Irishman is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe.

Stuff a cold and starve a cold are but two ways. They are the two practices, both always in full blast. Yet you must take the advice of the one school as if there was no other.

There are sure to be two prescriptions diametrically opposite.

A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.

We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. We should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. We should not meet thus in haste.

That we have but little faith is not sad, but that we have little faithfulness. By faithfulness faith is earned.

Heal yourselves, doctors; by God I live.

Wealth cannot purchase any great private solace or convenience. Riches are only the means of sociality.

At least let us have healthy books.

The commonest and cheapest sounds, as the barking of a dog, produce the same effect on fresh and healthy ears that the rarest music does. It depends on your appetite for sound. Just as a crust is sweeter to a healthy appetite than confectionery to a pampered or diseased one.

Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

Color, which is the poet's wealth, is so expensive that most take to mere outline sketches and become men of science.

There is not so good an understanding between any two, but the exposure by the one of a serious fault in the other will produce a misunderstanding in proportion to its heinousness.

What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes to relish the apple of life, the apple of the world, then!

The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell.

It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellowmen to have an interest in your enterprise.

Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.

A man has not seen a thing who has not felt it.

Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.

The only wealth is life.

If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?

WE begin to die not in our sense or extremities, but in our divine faculties.

We find it difficult to choose our direction because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.

Every sentence is the result of a long probation.

All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure helps to make me sad anddoes me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it.

I belive that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

The culture of the hop ... so analagous to the culture and uses of the grape, may afford a theme for future poets.

The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring.

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.

'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

. . . I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days. . . .

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

Wealth can't buy heath, but heath can buy wealth.

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right.

It is not so desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right

One must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.

Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. There is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.