Henry David Thoreau Time Quotations

Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than many fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence its singular success.

Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.

The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day.

As they say in geology, time never fails, there is always enough of it, so I may say, criticism never fails.

Time hides no treasures; we want not its then, but its now.

All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed,but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it.

The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids.

Men will tell you sometimes that "money's hard." That shows it was not made to eat, I say.... Some of those who sank with the steamer the other day found out that money was heavy too.

What a pity if we do not live this short time according to the laws of the long time,--the eternal laws!

Take Time by the forelock. It is also the safest part to take a serpent by.

As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiencesof the life that is in nature are in time veritably future, or rather outside of time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never die.

What a glorious time they must have in that wilderness, far from mankind and election day!

Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans.

No domain of nature is quite closed to man at all times.

A man of fine perceptions is more truly feminine than a merely sentimental woman.

Men seem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the centuries, earnestly rebuilding the works behind them, as they are battered down by the encroachments of time; but while they loiter, they and their works both fall prey to the arch enemy.

We must look a long time before we can see

Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It's thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

Nothing can be more useful to you than a determination not to be hurried.

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

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

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.

We discover a new world every time we see the earth again after it has been covered for a season with snow.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world over, living on anticipation.

It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you and I.

Tough times don't last but tough people do. No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch. Men are born to succeed, not fail.

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.

Our last deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity.

How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have...but shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable.

How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.

In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.