Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

Henry David Thoreau

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Henry David Thoreau

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

Henry David Thoreau

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

Henry David Thoreau

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

Henry David Thoreau

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

Henry David Thoreau

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Henry David Thoreau

There is more religion in men’s science, than there is science in their religion.

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

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

Henry David Thoreau

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Henry David Thoreau

In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial.

Henry David Thoreau

That government is best which governs least.

Henry David Thoreau

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

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

Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.

Henry David Thoreau

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

Henry David Thoreau

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

Henry David Thoreau

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.

Henry David Thoreau

City life is millions of people being lonesome together.

Henry David Thoreau

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

Henry David Thoreau

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

Henry David Thoreau

In the long run, we only hit what we aim at.

Henry David Thoreau

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Henry David Thoreau

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.

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

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Henry David Thoreau

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

Henry David Thoreau

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

Henry David Thoreau

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

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

Henry David Thoreau

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.

Henry David Thoreau

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.

Henry David Thoreau

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

Henry David Thoreau

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Henry David Thoreau

Kindness to children, love for children, goodness to children – these are the only investments that never fail.

Henry David Thoreau

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

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

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.

Henry David Thoreau

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

Henry David Thoreau

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

Henry David Thoreau

Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.

Henry David Thoreau

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Henry David Thoreau

Truths and roses have thorns about them.

Henry David Thoreau

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

Henry David Thoreau

Men have become the tools of their tools.

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

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

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated

Henry David Thoreau

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

Henry David Thoreau

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Henry David Thoreau

Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

Henry David Thoreau

We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.

Henry David Thoreau

I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Henry David Thoreau

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

Henry David Thoreau

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?

Henry David Thoreau

All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.

Henry David Thoreau