Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 2

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

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.

I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.

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.

The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

We are constantly invited to be who we are.

It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and another to hear.

Truth strikes us from behind and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad daylight.

Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

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.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?

It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.