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If a man loses pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau
Related topics: Values Choice Honor Bold Purpose Self
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked,
in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David Thoreau
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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Could a greater miracle take place
than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
- Henry David Thoreau
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.
- Henry David Thoreau
If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new
continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
- Henry David Thoreau
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,
not by mechanical aid, but by
an infinite expectation of the dawn.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live the life you've dreamed.
- Henry David Thoreau
Through our own recovered innocence
we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
- Henry David Thoreau
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
- Henry David Thoreau
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal,
and then leap in the dark to our success.
- Henry David Thoreau
You must live in the present,
launch yourself on every wave,
find your eternity in each moment.
- Henry David Thoreau
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
- Henry David Thoreau
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
- Henry David Thoreau
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important
as what you become by achieving your goals.
- Henry David Thoreau
What old people say you cannot do,
you try and find that you can.
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations.
For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is what a man thinks of himself
that really determines his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau
As you simplify your life,
the laws of the universe will be simpler;
solitude will not be solitude,
poverty will not be poverty,
nor weakness weakness.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
- Henry David Thoreau
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life
are not only not indispensable,
but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
- Henry David Thoreau
Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
- Henry David Thoreau
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- Henry David Thoreau
To have done anything just for money
is to have been truly idle.
- Henry David Thoreau
I have found that hollow,
which even I had relied on for solid.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be not merely good; be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
Books can only reveal us to ourselves,
and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
- Henry David Thoreau
We shall see but a little way if
we require to understand what we see.
- Henry David Thoreau
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
- Henry David Thoreau
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right.
Men will believe what they see.
- Henry David Thoreau
Ignorance and bungling with love
are better than wisdom and skill without.
- Henry David Thoreau
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
- Henry David Thoreau
When I hear music, I fear no danger.
I am invulnerable. I see no foe.
I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
- Henry David Thoreau
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed,
and in such desperate enterprises?
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau
I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,
and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
Simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.
- Henry David Thoreau
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
The heart is forever inexperienced.
- Henry David Thoreau
All this worldly wisdom was once
the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
- Henry David Thoreau
Truths and roses have thorns about them.
- Henry David Thoreau
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
- Henry David Thoreau
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Henry David Thoreau
I had three chairs in my house;
one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants.
The question is: What are we busy about?
- Henry David Thoreau
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
What is once well done is done forever.
- Henry David Thoreau
I have always been regretting that
I was not as wise as the day I was born.
- Henry David Thoreau
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
- Henry David Thoreau
The perception of beauty is a moral test.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it
and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is not desirable to cultivate
a respect for the law,
so much as for the right.
- Henry David Thoreau
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
- Henry David Thoreau
Success usually comes to those
who are too busy to be looking for it.
- Henry David Thoreau
We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do not be too moral.
You may cheat yourself out of much life.
So aim above morality.
Be not simply good;
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau
Many men go fishing all of their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
- Henry David Thoreau
May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- Henry David Thoreau
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.
Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do what you love.
Know your own bone;
gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it,
and gnaw it still.
- Henry David Thoreau
The universe is wider than our views of it.
- Henry David Thoreau
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit
which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
- Henry David Thoreau
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know,
can any work be humble or disgusting?
Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder,
the means by which we are translated?
- Henry David Thoreau
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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