Henry David Thoreau Rational Quotations

Look not to legislatures and churches for your guidance, nor to any soulless incorporated bodies, but to inspirited or inspired ones.

It is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminatedmoments are.

But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines, but fragile flowers, like the orchises, commonly described as too delicate for cultivation, which derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of peat. These remind us, that, not only for strength, but for beauty, the poet must, from time to time, travel the logger's path and the Indian's trail, to drink at some new and more bracing fountain of the Muses, far in the recesses of the wilderness.

The poet's, commonly, is not a logger's path, but a woodman's. The logger and pioneer have preceded him, like John the Baptist; eaten the wild honey, it may be, but the locusts also; banished decaying wood and the spongy mosses which feed on it, and built hearths and humanized Nature for him.

The murmurs of many a famous river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, as to more distant dwellers on its banks;many a poet's stream, floating the helms and shields of heroes on its bosom.

The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered.

Seeds, there are seeds enough which need only be stirred in with the soil where they lie, by an inspired voice or pen, to bear fruit of a divine flavor.

A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.

If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the barroom and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed.

The word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which the speaker could have better done. Nay, almost it must have taken the place of a deed by some urgent necessity, even by some misfortune, so that the truest writer will be some captive knight, after all. And perhaps the fates had such a design, when, having stored Raleigh so richly with the substance of life and experience, they made him a fast prisoner, and compelled him to make his words his deeds, and transfer to his expression the emphasis and sincerity of his action.

Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.

In my cheapest moments I am apt to think that it is n't my business to be "seeking the spirit," but as much its business to be seeking me.

The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence.

Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue caught from a vaster receding thought.

The devil finds work for idle hands.

We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that 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. . . . In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature -if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you -know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.

What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

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.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

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.

You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

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

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist. With the least inclination to be well, we should not be sick.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods, and lives adivine life. By the healthful and invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a serene old age.

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

Our thoughts are epochs in our lives; all else is but as a journal of the winds that blow while we are here.

He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.

Man emulates earth Earth emulates heaven Heaven emulates the Way The way emulates nature.

Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.

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

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.

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

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

be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

The kindness I have longest remembered has been of this sort, the sort unsaid; so far behind the speaker's lips that almost it already lay in my heart. It did not have far to go to be communicated.

Being is the great explainer.

The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind.

For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once done well is done forever.

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.