221 Quotes By Henry David Thoreau


None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David Thoreau on age

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Henry David Thoreau on alone

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.
Henry David Thoreau on alone

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

The man who goes alone can start today but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
Henry David Thoreau on alone

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.
Henry David Thoreau on alone

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.
Henry David Thoreau on alone

They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.
Henry David Thoreau on architecture

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
Henry David Thoreau on art

The perception of beauty is a moral test.
Henry David Thoreau on beauty

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
Henry David Thoreau on beauty

That government is best which governs least.
Henry David Thoreau on best

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
Henry David Thoreau on best

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
Henry David Thoreau on best

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
Henry David Thoreau on best

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
Henry David Thoreau on best

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.
Henry David Thoreau on best

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
Henry David Thoreau on business

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
Henry David Thoreau on business

Things do not change we change.
Henry David Thoreau on change