26 verified quotes from 2 works, 1849 to 1854.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) lived in Concord, Massachusetts, and is best known for Walden (1854), his account of the two years he spent in a cabin he built by Walden Pond. He also wrote the essay now known as Civil Disobedience (1849), about the night he spent in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax.
Almost all of his quotes here come from Walden, and each was found word for word in the Project Gutenberg edition we link. The note under each one says what he was writing about at that point in the book.
What “verified” means, and what we leave out: How we verify.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Our note: Written after Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a tax he believed supported injustice.
Verified in the full text of Civil Disobedience on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205 · Collected in Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience
Painted the same decade: The Abduction of Rebecca, Eugène Delacroix, 1846
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.
Our note: Thoreau explains why he built a small cabin by Walden Pond and lived there for two years.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Our note: From the opening chapter, "Economy," where Thoreau questions how most people spend their working lives.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
Our note: Thoreau's case for cutting life down to what really matters.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
If a man does not keep 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.
Our note: From the book's conclusion, defending people who live at their own pace.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Our note: Thoreau sums up what his two years at the pond taught him.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Our note: A line from the conclusion of Walden about turning dreams into plans.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.
Our note: Thoreau urges readers to face their circumstances rather than complain about them.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.
Our note: From the conclusion, on finding joy without wealth.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Our note: Thoreau compares time to the shallow stream he fishes in, while eternity lies deeper.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Our note: From the chapter "Solitude," on why living alone did not make him lonely.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Our note: One of the closing lines of Walden.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Our note: Thoreau on noticing wonder in the ground beneath us, from the chapter on the pond in winter.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
…a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
Our note: Thoreau measures wealth by what we can do without.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
Our note: From the chapter "Visitors," describing the furniture of his one-room cabin.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
Our note: Thoreau argues that real change happens in the person, not the wardrobe.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
Our note: From the conclusion of Walden.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
Our note: Thoreau describes his mornings at the pond.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
…the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
Our note: Thoreau's definition of cost, from the chapter "Economy."
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
Our note: An early line in Walden about questioning what everyone takes for granted.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
Our note: The final lines of Walden.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, …
Our note: Part of Thoreau's explanation of why he went to the woods.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
We need the tonic of wildness,—to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; …
Our note: From the chapter "Spring," on why people need wild places.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
Our note: From the chapter "Economy."
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine, Théodore Chassériau, 1851
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.
Our note: Thoreau on how comfort can get in the way of a good life.
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: The Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse, Adolph Menzel, 1851
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.
Our note: A wry aside from the chapter "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For."
Verified in the full text of Walden on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #205
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
We use Google Analytics to understand traffic. OK to enable analytics cookies?