Henry David Thoreau Quotes on Life
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. This page collects quotes attributed to Henry David Thoreau on the topic of life, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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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:
“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.”
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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:
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.”
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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.”