Facebook share Tweet This Email this
If you can speak what you will never hear,
if you can write what you will never read,
you have done rare things.
- Henry David Thoreau
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David Thoreau 
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
Please sign up for my Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote email using the form below.
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
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau
I have always been regretting that
I was not as wise as the day I was born.
- Henry David Thoreau
Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
The universe is wider than our views of it.
- 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
I had three chairs in my house;
one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
- Henry David Thoreau
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
- Henry David Thoreau
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
- 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 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
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
The youth gets together his materials
to build a bridge to the moon,
or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth,
and, at length, the middle-aged man
concludes to build a woodshed with them.
- 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
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
Aim above morality.
Be not simply good,
be good for something.
- 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 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
Not until we are lost
do we begin to understand ourselves.
- Henry David Thoreau
How could youths better learn to live
than by at once trying the experiment of living?
- Henry David Thoreau
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
- 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
It is not desirable to cultivate
a respect for the law,
so much as for the right.
- Henry David Thoreau
Through our own recovered innocence
we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
- Henry David Thoreau
What is once well done is done forever.
- Henry David Thoreau
Every generation laughs at the old fashions,
but follows religiously the new.
- 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
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,
not by mechanical aid, but by
an infinite expectation of the dawn.
- 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
It is what a man thinks of himself
that really determines his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live the life you've dreamed.
- Henry David Thoreau
Simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau
The man who goes alone can start today;
but he who travels with another
must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl:
it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
- 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
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
- Henry David Thoreau
May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- 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
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
- Henry David Thoreau
Things do not change; we change.
- Henry David Thoreau
There are old heads in the world
who cannot help me by their example or advice
to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself;
but I believe that it is in my power
to elevate myself this very hour
above the common level of my life.
- Henry David Thoreau
If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams
and endeavor to leave the life which you have imagined,
you will you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
- Henry David Thoreau
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be not merely good; be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
- 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
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
- Henry David Thoreau
Truths and roses have thorns about them.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
- Henry David Thoreau
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
- Henry David Thoreau
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
Being is the great explainer.
- Henry David Thoreau
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
- Henry David Thoreau
All endeavor calls for the ability
to tramp the last mile,
shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.
The fight to the finish spirit is the one...
characteristic we must posses
if we are to face the future as finishers.
- 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
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- Henry David Thoreau
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
- Henry David Thoreau
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- 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
If we will be quiet and ready enough,
we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
- 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
Thank you for visiting: If you can speak what you will never hear, by Henry David Thoreau from life Quotes and Sayings.
Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.
You can also search or browse my large collection of Quotes about Life.
May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You may read about our disclaimer, our privacy policy, terms of use, participation in affiliate programs, and copyright policy.
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.