Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Inspiration

• 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.

• Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Success, Inspiration

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.93, BookBaby

• It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Funny, Wisdom, Truth

  A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)

• 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

• It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Happiness, Success, Hope

• 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.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Walden ch. 18 (1854)

• What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Health

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.10, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

• You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this. I wish to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, everyday phenomena, so that what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Lying, Inspiration

• Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Work, Inspiration, Soul And Body

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.18, Courier Corporation

• Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspiration, Knowledge, Light

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.419, Simon and Schuster

• What is once well done is done forever.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Integrity, Inspiration, Forever

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.10, Hayes Barton Press

• It is strange to talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Inspiration, Past

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1143, Delphi Classics

• Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Memories, Inspiration, Losing

  Henry David Thoreau (1993). “A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851”, p.204, Penguin

• Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority, have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which the bear and panther, and some even of the hunter race, may still exist, and not be "civilized off the face of the earth," - our forests, not to hold the king's game merely, but to hold and preserve the king himself also, the lord of creation, - not for idle sport or food, but for inspiration and our own true re-creation?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sports, Kings, Inspiration

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “The Maine Woods - The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, p.102, Read Books Ltd

• All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Family, Faith, Morning

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.482, Simon and Schuster

• You must walk sometimes perfectly free, not prying or inquisitive, not bent on seeing things. Throw away a whole day for a single expansion, a single inspiration of air. You must walk so gently as to hear the finest sounds, the faculties being in repose. Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspiration, Eye, Air

• The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods, and lives adivine life. By the healthful and invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a serene old age.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Men, Serenity

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.243, Xist Publishing

• What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspiration, Heart, Yield

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.88, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the barroom and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Communication, Character

  Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.137, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

• Give me the old familiar world, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Faith, Inspiration, Self

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.201, Courier Corporation

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