1817-1862, American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. What are threescore years and ten hurriedly and coarsely lived to moments of divine leisure in which your life is coincident with the life of the universe?
Henry David Thoreau – [Leisure]
A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams.
Henry David Thoreau – [Friends and Friendship]
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.
Henry David Thoreau – [Friends and Friendship]
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Henry David Thoreau – [Wealth]
A man sits as many risks as he runs.
Henry David Thoreau – [Risk]
A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as this brain.
Henry David Thoreau – [Thoughts and Thinking]
A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.
Henry David Thoreau – [Minorities]
A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.
Henry David Thoreau – [Names]
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.
Henry David Thoreau – [Writers and Writing]
A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.
Henry David Thoreau – [Plays]
Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.
Henry David Thoreau – [Rules]
After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.
Henry David Thoreau – [Battles]
After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.
Henry David Thoreau – [Sin]
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau – [Advice]
All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.
Henry David Thoreau – [Worth]
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.
Henry David Thoreau – [Voting]
Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.
Henry David Thoreau – [Money]
Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.
Henry David Thoreau – [Rules]
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
Henry David Thoreau – [Deeds and Good Deeds]
As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.
Henry David Thoreau – [Age and Aging]