Henry David Thoreau: Trending quotes (page 8)

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.”

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root”

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”

“It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?”

“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”

“I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.”

“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.”

“Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.”

“I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don't get enough for this year, I shall cry all the next.”

“The universe is wider than our views of it.”

“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

“Friends… they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.”

“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”

“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”

“We are constantly invited to be what we are.”

“To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.”

“A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.”

“When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.”