Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Earth

• 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

  Life, Single, Inspiration

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.27, Heron Dance Press

• I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Real, Believe

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.201, Yale University Press

• What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Inspiring, Peace

  Henry David Thoreau, Joseph O. Valentine, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Land: Nature's Canvas”, p.79, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Funny, Life, Nature

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.90, Courier Corporation

• Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Sky, Earth Day

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.217, Courier Corporation

• And now that we have returned to the desultory life of the plain, let us endeavor to import a little of that mountain grandeur into it. We will remember within what walls we lie, and understand that this level life too has its summit, and why from the mountain-top the deepest valleys have a tinge of blue; that there is elevation in every hour, as no part of the earth is so low that the heavens may not be seen from, and we have only to stand on the summit of our hour to command an uninterrupted horizon.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Wall, Lying

  Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.103, Rowman & Littlefield

• A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beautiful, Nature, Eye

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.35, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• 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

  Inspirational, Life, Death

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

• I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Adventure, Dead Poets Society

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

• Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Positive, Attitude, Feet

  Henry David Thoreau, Laura Ross (2009). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods: Bold-faced Ideas for Living a Truly Transcendent Life”, p.373, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

• 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

  Nature, Science, Men

  "Life Without Principle" (1863)

• The earth I tread on is not a dead inert mass. It is a body, has a spirit; is organic and fluid to the influence of its spirit and to whatever particle of the spirit is in me.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Body, Earth, Spirit

  Henry David Thoreau (1993). “A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851”, p.313, Penguin

• They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Spring, Winter, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.26, Courier Corporation

• I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Autumn, Light, Simplicity

  Henry David Thoreau (1892). “Autumn: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”

• This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Stars, Thinking, Space

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.226, Penguin

• Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Best Friend, I Miss You, Missing You

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Thoreau's Book of Quotations”, p.26, Courier Corporation

• You must love the crust of the earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake. You must be able to extract nutriment out of a sand-heap. You must have so good an appetite as this, else you will live in vain

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sweet, Cake, Earth

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.192, Courier Corporation

• Perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the navigation of space, the entire race may migrate from the earth, to settle some vacant and more western planet.... It took but little art, a simple application of natural laws, a canoe, a paddle, and a sail of matting, to people the isles of the Pacific, and a little more will people the shining isles of space. Do we not see in the firmament the lights carried along the shore by night, as Columbus did? Let us not despair or mutiny.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Moon, Simple

  "Paradise (to Be) Regained" (1843)

• I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary wealth, I have been nailed dawn to this my native region so long and steadily, and made to study and love this spot of earth more and more. What would signify in comparison a thin and diffused love and knowledge of the whole earth instead, got by wandering? The traveler's is but a barren and comfortless condition. Wealth will not buy a man a home in nature-house nor farm there. The man of business does not by his business earn a residence in nature, but is denaturalized rather.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Kindness, Home

• We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Night, Heaven, Camping

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.61

• I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Doors, Years

  Henry David Thoreau (2010). “Walden”, p.300, Bibliolis Books

• Let a slight snow come and cover the earth, and the tracks of men will show how little the woods and fields are frequented.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Snow, Track

  Henry David Thoreau (1962). “Journal”

• 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

• As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there; some, prodigies and portents; some rarely look up at all; their heads, like the brutes,' are directed toward Earth. Some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable. The world runs to see the panorama, when there is a panorama in the sky which few go to see.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Men, Clouds

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.29, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• 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

  Time, Moon, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.167, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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