Henry David Thoreau Quotes
Henry David Thoreau was a 19th-century American philosopher, essayist, and naturalist, the second major figure of the Transcendentalist movement after Ralph Waldo Emerson, his mentor and friend. His 1854 book Walden, written during the two years he lived in a small cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, is a foundational text of American nature writing and a meditation on simplicity, self-sufficiency, and the relation between the individual and society. The quotes below are attributed to Henry David Thoreau, organized by topic.
Henry David Thoreau on Freedom
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“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 on Justice
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
Henry David Thoreau on Life
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“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.”
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“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.”
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“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 on Politics
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“That government is best which governs least.”
Henry David Thoreau on Time
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.”
Henry David Thoreau on Virtue
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Attributed to Henry David Thoreau:
“Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”