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Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau
Related topics: Sad Feeling-Down Wisdom Life Human-Nature Psychology Spiritual
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau
Could a greater miracle take place
than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
- Henry David Thoreau
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked,
in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David Thoreau
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
- 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
It is what a man thinks of himself
that really determines his fate.
- 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
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live the life you've dreamed.
- Henry David Thoreau
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
- 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
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.
- 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
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
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new
continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
- 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
Through our own recovered innocence
we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
- Henry David Thoreau
You must live in the present,
launch yourself on every wave,
find your eternity in each moment.
- 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
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal,
and then leap in the dark to our success.
- 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
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
- Henry David Thoreau
Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
- 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
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants.
The question is: What are we busy about?
- Henry David Thoreau
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- Henry David Thoreau
I have found that hollow,
which even I had relied on for solid.
- Henry David Thoreau
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
- Henry David Thoreau
May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- Henry David Thoreau
It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
- Henry David Thoreau
Aim above morality.
Be not simply good,
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
It's not what you look at that matters,
it's what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
- Henry David Thoreau
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
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
- 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
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
- Henry David Thoreau
All this worldly wisdom was once
the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
- 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
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
The heart is forever inexperienced.
- Henry David Thoreau
Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau
The perception of beauty is a moral test.
- Henry David Thoreau
To have done anything just for money
is to have been truly idle.
- Henry David Thoreau
We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
Truths and roses have thorns about them.
- Henry David Thoreau
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
- 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
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
- 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
Things do not change; we change.
- Henry David Thoreau
If one advances confidently
in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live
the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with success
unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
- Henry David Thoreau
Ignorance and bungling with love
are better than wisdom and skill without.
- Henry David Thoreau
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
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
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
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
- Henry David Thoreau
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is not desirable to cultivate
a respect for the law,
so much as for the right.
- 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
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
Success usually comes to those
who are too busy to be looking for it.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be not merely good; be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- 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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