Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
– Henry David Thoreau
Related Quotes:
- Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. – Henry David Thoreau
- What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. – Henry David Thoreau
- For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak, But only thinks and does; Though surely out ’twill leak Without the help of Greek, Or any tongue. – Henry David Thoreau
- The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard – Henry David Thoreau
- If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see. – Henry David Thoreau
- I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things. – Henry David Thoreau
- He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair. – Henry David Thoreau
- Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. – Henry David Thoreau
- How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. – Henry David Thoreau
- It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. – Henry David Thoreau
- Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth. – Henry David Thoreau
- Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. – Henry David Thoreau
- In my opinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil than this. – Henry David Thoreau
- Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. – Henry David Thoreau
- Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. – Henry David Thoreau
- To be awake is to be alive. – Henry David Thoreau
- What are these pines & these birds about? What is this pond a-doing? I must know a little more. – Henry David Thoreau
- …is not Nature, rightly read, that of which she is commonly taken to be the symbol merely? – Henry David Thoreau
- I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. – Henry David Thoreau
- It is only when we forget our learning, do we begin to know. – Henry David Thoreau
- One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. – Henry David Thoreau
- We have the St. Vitus’ dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still – Henry David Thoreau
- It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. – Henry David Thoreau
- What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. – Henry David Thoreau
- God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. – Henry David Thoreau
- What is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? – Henry David Thoreau
- There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony. – Henry David Thoreau
- The silence rings-”it is musical & thrills me. A night in which the silence was audible-”I hear the unspeakable. – Henry David Thoreau
- The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks. – Henry David Thoreau
- I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse. – Henry David Thoreau
- The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him. – Henry David Thoreau
- A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world. – Henry David Thoreau
- Now-a-days, men wear a fool’s cap, and call it a liberty cap. – Henry David Thoreau
- Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. – Henry David Thoreau
- It is not enought to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? – Henry David Thoreau
- An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. – Henry David Thoreau
- To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exlcude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. – Henry David Thoreau
- Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. – Henry David Thoreau
- Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. – Henry David Thoreau
- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. – Henry David Thoreau