Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Character

• Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Travel, Character

• Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Graduation, Dream

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.238, Courier Corporation

• What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Home, Adventure

  Henry David Thoreau, Laura Ross (2009). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods: Bold-faced Ideas for Living a Truly Transcendent Life”, p.273, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

• All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Thinking, Voting

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

• Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Children, Spring

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.399, Simon and Schuster

• The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Integrity, Character, Ethics

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.199, Delphi Classics

• Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Men, Flesh And Blood

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.159, Xist Publishing

• We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Adequate, Language

• How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Harvest

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.134, Courier Corporation

• Pity the man who has a character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is silent poor indeed.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Family, Character, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2077, Delphi Classics

• We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Family, Character, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2077, Delphi Classics

• The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Time, Character, Government

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.3, Hayes Barton Press

• I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching-thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again."

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Religious, Kings

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.140

• Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concretic layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society...may unexpectedly come forth...to enjoy its perfect summer life at last!...Such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn...Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beautiful, Summer, Morning

  Walden ch. 18 (1854)

• We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Men, Tragedy

  Henry David Thoreau (2002). “Walden: Or, Life in the Woods”, p.26, Courier Corporation

• We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Kindness, Character, Real Friends

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.259, Princeton University Press

• A true politeness does not result from any hasty and artificial polishing, it is true, but grows naturally in characters of the right grain and quality, through a long fronting of men and events, and rubbing on good and bad fortune.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Integrity, Character, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.105, Penguin

• Your richest veins don't lie nearest the surface.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Lying, Character, Veins

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1612, Delphi Classics

• Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate tolay them aside without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Receiving, Delay

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

• The humblest observer who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where the fact is not so obvious.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Gambling, Gold

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.413, Simon and Schuster

• The outward is only the outside of that which is within. Men are not concealed under habits, but are revealed by them; they are their true clothes.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Men, Clothes

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.356, Penguin

• In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Real, Character

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden and Other Writings”, p.79, Bantam Classics

• Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Character, Blow

• As all curves have reference to their centres or foci, so all beauty of character has reference to the soul, and is a graceful gesture of recognition or waving of the body toward it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Curves, Focus

  Henry David Thoreau, Robert Lawrence France, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Water: Reflecting Heaven”, p.55, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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