Quotes from Walden or, Life in the Woods
24 notable lines from Henry David Thoreau · 1854
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Conclusion Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Conclusion Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
Economy 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.
Conclusion 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.
Conclusion Men have become the tools of their tools.
Economy I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
Visitors I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Solitude Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.
Conclusion There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
Conclusion — closing lines Things do not change; we change.
Conclusion To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
Economy In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
Economy What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
Economy