Quotations by Henry David Thoreau

I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor to be flattered by them, for that will not advance either of us. We need to be provoked— goaded like oxen, as we are, into a trot.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

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 · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience