Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Vision

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  It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.87, BookBaby

• If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Walden ch. 18 (1854)

• I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.202, Penguin

• 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)

• I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Real, Loneliness, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Walden; Or, Life in the Woods”, p.89, Courier Corporation

• I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Hero, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau, Carl Hovde (1980). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.140, Princeton University Press

• We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Happiness, Laughter, Memories

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1631, Delphi Classics

• Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Fall, Intellectual, Vision

  Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.12, Courier Corporation

• I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Vision, Awe

• It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair's breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance ... To perceive freshly, with fresh senses is to be inspired.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beauty, Hair, Vision

  Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.349, New York Review of Books

• 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

  Nature, Eye, Garden

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.9, Courier Corporation

• I keep a mountain anchored off eastward a little way, which I ascend in my dreams both awake and asleep. Its broad base spreads over a village or two, which does not know it; neither does it know them, nor do I when I ascend it. I can see its general outline as plainly now in my mind as that of Wachusett. I do not invent in the least, but state exactly what I see. I find that I go up it when I am light-footed and earnest. It ever smokes like an altar with its sacrifice. I am not aware that a single villager frequents it or knows of it. I keep this mountain to ride instead of a horse.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Horse, Knowledge

• Methinks I am never quite committed, never wholly the creature of my moods, but always to some extent their critic. My only integral experience is in my vision. I see, perchance, with more integrity than I feel.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Integrity, Commitment, Vision

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.359, Penguin

• I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface ofthings. We think that that is which appears to be.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mean, Thinking, Vision

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.152

• In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Ocean, Whales, Sea

  Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.167, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as freely.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Writing, Vision, Peers

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.341, Princeton University Press

• Beside some philosophers of larger vision, Carlyle stands like an honest, half-despairing boy, grasping at some details only of their world systems.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophical, Boys, Vision

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.281, Simon and Schuster

• What do the botanists know? Our lives should go between the lichen and the bark. The eye may see for the hand, but not for the mind. We are still being born, and have as yet but a dim vision of sea and land, sun, moon, and stars, and shall not see clearly till after nine days at least.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Stars, Eye

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.286, Delphi Classics

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