Henry David Thoreau Quotes

American essayist, poet, and philosopher (1817–1862)

Henry David Thoreau (12 July 1817 – 6 May 1862) was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

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Birth Name: David Henry Thoreau

Alternative Names: Thoreau • Henry D. Thoreau • Henry Thoreau

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We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes.

I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character — his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light.

Genius is a light which makes darkness visible, like the lightnings flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself, —and not a taper lighted at the hearth-stone of the race, which pales before the light of common day.

I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the criticism. Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.

See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. 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.

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

Spring is brown; summer, green; autumn, yellow; winter, white; November, gray.

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.

So long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.

Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.

Nothing is so sure to make itself known as the truth, for what else waits to be known?

I do not wish to force my thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know of Captain Brown, I would fain do my part to correct the tone and the statements of the newspapers, and of my countrymen generally, respecting his character and actions. It costs us nothing to be just. We can at least express our sympathy with, and admiration of, him and his companions, and that is what I now propose to do.

A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.

As long as possible live free and uncommitted.

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in a single, solitary, even humble individual. For it is within the soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.