Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Wisdom

• Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Travel, Character

• To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Life, Trust

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.9, Courier Corporation

• 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)

• What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

• Things do not change; we change.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Change

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.212, Cosimo, Inc.

• This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.208, Xist Publishing

• If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Success, Music, Forgiveness

  Walden ch. 18 (1854). Frequently quoted as "marches to the tune of a different drummer."

• 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)

• A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Wise

  Walden ch. 2 (1854)

• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  Walden ch. 1 (1854)

• To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common sense,it contains only enduring and essential truth, the I and you, the here and there, the now and then, being omitted. Either time or rare wisdom writes it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Truth, Writing

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.42, Xist Publishing

• All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.109, BookBaby

• You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Loneliness, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.173, Courier Corporation

• It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Business

  'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

• That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Happiness, Wisdom, Money

• A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Gold, Surface

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Civil Disobedience and Other Essays”, p.80, Courier Corporation

• The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beautiful, Patience, Wisdom

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.63

• A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Ignorance

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.109, BookBaby

• Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Nature, Science

  Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.221, Courier Corporation

• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Country, Men

  'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

• If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Wisdom, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.7, Hayes Barton Press

• A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.6, Hayes Barton Press

• I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Self Reliance, Should

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

• I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Valentines Day, Wise, Wisdom

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.110, BookBaby

• Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirth-fulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Gay, Mirth

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.15, Courier Corporation

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