Henry David Thoreau Done Quotations

You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.

If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.

When a noble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble themselves.

If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Each reader discovers for himself that, with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeeding poets have done little else than copy his similes.

To live a better life,--this surely can be done.

Only what is thought, said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good.

The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what we do; and yet how much is not done by us!

As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full.

I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect...always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished.

As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done.