Walden Quotes

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!”
― Henry David Thoreau

“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.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought, go about doing good.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life... to put rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
― N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society

“There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“To be awake is to be alive.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal,—that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality... The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Autumn came, with wind and gold.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Life in the Woods

“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“All praise to winter, then, was Henry's feeling. Let others have their sultry luxuries. How full of creative genius was the air in which these snow-crystals were generated. He could hardly have marveled more if real stars had fallen and lodged on his coat. What a world to live in, where myriads of these little discs, so beautiful to the most prying eye, were whirled down on every traveler's coat, on the restless squirrel's fur and on the far-stretching fields and forests, the wooded dells and mountain-tops,--these glorious spangles, the sweepings of heaven's floor.”
― Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England, 1815-1865

“I wanted to live how I really wanted, even if that meant turning against what everyone I knew was doing. I didn’t want to be close to the action or save on rent by sharing space anymore. I wanted to live somewhere with quiet views of the mountains, surrounded by nature and with plenty of time to sit, read, write and think.”
― Lucy Fuggle

“Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still. There was never yet such a storm but it was Æolian music to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

“I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing of mist, and here and there, by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface was revealed.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Fui a los bosques porque quería vivir deliberadamente; enfrentar solo los hechos de la vida y ver si podía aprender lo que ella tenía que enseñar. Quise vivir profundamente y desechar todo aquello que no fuera vida... para no darme cuenta, en el momento de morir, que no había vivido.”
― Henry David Thoreau, The Nature Writings of Henry David Thoreau

“Tokie jau rytdienos prigimitis - ji niekada neišaušta, genama vien laiko. Šviesa, kuri akina, mums atrodo kaip tamsa. Išaušta tik tas rytas, kuriame mes patys pabundame. Diena ateina po aušros. Saulė tėra ryto žvaidžgė.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“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, independences, magnanimity, and trust. it is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically but practically. the success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods

“Andai nei boschi perché desideravo vivere deliberatamente, affrontare solo i fatti essenziali della vita, e vedere se non potessi imparare cosa avesse da insegnare, senza scoprire, giunto alla morte, di non aver vissuto. Non desideravo vivere ciò che non era una vita, per quanto caro mi sia il vivere; né desideravo praticare la rassegnazione, a meno che non fosse necessaria. Volevo vivere in profondità e succhiare tutto il midollo della vita, vivere in modo così risoluto e spartano da sbaragliare tutto quanto non fosse vita; da aprirmi con la falce un varco ampio e raso terra, da spingere nell'angolo la vita e ridurla ai minimi termini; e, se si fosse dimostrata essere meschina, da arrivare, perché no?, alla sua completa e genuina meschinità, rendendola pubblica al mondo; o se fosse stata sublime, da conoscerla per esperienza; e da essere in grado di darne un resoconto sincero nella mia successiva escursione letteraria. Perché gran parte degli uomini, mi pare, ha una strana incertezza al riguardo, se sia del diavolo o di Dio, e ha _un po' frettolosamente_ concluso che il primo fine dell'uomo su questa terra è" rendere gloria a Dio e goderlo per l'eternità ".”
― Thoreau Henry David, Walden

“They honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“Yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“We cannot, after all, be forced to be free or to value freedom.”
― Philip Cafaro, Thoreau's Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of Virtue

“Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry—determined to make a day of it.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“During those contemplative moments on Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau seemed aware of such complex interactions—that, (as had been relayed by Kuan Yin), “It takes a tremendous amount of courage to deeply relate to nature...You’re too distracted by other issues. Put them aside and really look at the flower with me.”
“I’m looking at the flower and watching how Kuan Yin relates to it, I’m seeing how the act of relating to a flower appears to be so simple. Yet, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to make such a simple act important. I understand now how busyness can be a real distraction, how it can create ‘made up’ realities. Being present means an absence of past and future. I’m seeing how bringing the mind into the present is the link to eternity and that true meditation is the acceptance of no past or future. I realize these are amazingly brave concepts, that there are only moments upon moments to be lived. It’s almost inconceivable.
Usually Kuan Yin takes me on a journey somewhere. Or there is an elaborate backdrop. Today, however, we’re in ‘no place’. Against only a backdrop of air, Kuan Yin sits; intent upon really being with a flower. It’s so interesting. There is a tremendous difference between the consciousness of really being with something and, for instance, living a life. It’s as if the life is the dream!”
Indeed, the following quotations from “Walden” illustrate Thoreau’s deep abidance of nature—that through such a sacred connection, we access the deep vitality of our being, elevating ourselves as well as our surroundings:
“It's the beauty within us that makes it possible for us to recognize the beauty around us. The question is not what you look at but what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau - Walden
Equally, Thoreau appears to espouse the higher elevations of human consciousness—that there exists an inseparable bond, regardless of ego’s prejudices, between the ego and Higher Self.”
― Hope Bradford, the empath chronicles