Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Ethics

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

  Henry David Thoreau

  Motivational, Friendship, Nature

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.15, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• 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

  Inspirational, Cheating, Integrity

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.83, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Business, Integrity, Bad Day

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.133, Graphic Arts Books

• We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Time, Integrity, Vices

  Henry David Thoreau (1975). “Early Essays and Miscellanies”, p.224, Princeton University Press

• It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Motivational, Respect, Law

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

• The true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and finer experience. We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. It is with science as with ethics,--we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Philosophy, Feel Better

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Excursions (Annotated Edition)”, p.27, Jazzybee Verlag

• 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

• He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics. The fact which interests us most is the life of the naturalist. The purest science is still biographical.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Learning, Exercise

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature – 6 Book Collection (Illustrated): Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada & Canoeing in the Wilderness - North American Highlands Series”, p.270, e-artnow

• Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Witty, Powerful, Humorous

• I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Trust, Father Son, Thinking

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.19

• What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Ethics, Morality, Chiefs

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.537, Simon and Schuster

• The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one. Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics; that is mixed mathematics.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Exercise, Science, Mind

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.362, Princeton University Press

• You cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that which shocks you.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Ethics, Morality, Affinity

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.303

• He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. Butwe would not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described. They are truths in physics because they are true in ethics.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Science, Sunshine

  Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.140, David M Gross

• Mathematics should be mixed not only with physics but with ethics.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Ethics, Morality, Physics

  Henry David Thoreau (1975). “Early Essays and Miscellanies”, p.362, Princeton University Press

• The golden mean in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system and that about which all revolve, and though to a distant and plodding planet it be an uttermost extreme, yet one day, when that planet's year is completed, it will be found to be central.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mean, Years, One Day

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.930, Delphi Classics

You May Also Like:

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walt Whitman

Margaret Fuller

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Leo Tolstoy

Herman Melville

Mahatma Gandhi