Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Habits

• Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Feet, Goal, Long

  Henry David Thoreau, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Bradford Torrey (1906). “Journal”

• I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Believe, Mind, Habit

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.418, Simon and Schuster

• By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mean, Selfishness, Landscape

  Henry David Thoreau, Michael McCurdy, Terry Tempest Williams (2010). “Walden”, p.88, Shambhala Publications

• Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Long, Doubt

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.244, Graphic Arts Books

• It is but too easy to establish another durable and harmonious routine. Immediately all parts of nature consent to it. Only make something to take the place of something, and men will behave as if it was the very thing they wanted.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Routine, Conformity

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.106, Delphi Classics

• As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle. In one direction from my house there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; under the grove of elms and buttonwoods in the other horizon was a village of busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prarie-dogs, each sitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a neighbor's to gossip. I went there frequently to observe their habits.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Dog, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Walden: Life in the Woods”, p.105, Gibbs Smith

• As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow indoor occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as theevening of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just before sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an hour.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Age, Half

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.394, Penguin

• As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Gun, Thinking, Hunting

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.152, Xist Publishing

• In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sloth, Mind, Students

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.158, Xist Publishing

• The Indian...stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, House, Guests

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.48, BookBaby

• I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, House, Empires

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Success, Freedom, Law

  Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.138, Rowman & Littlefield

• 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

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