Henry David Thoreau Quotations: ECONOMY
I do not so much wish to know how to economize time as how to spend it, by what means to grow rich, that the day may not have been in vain.—Journal, 7 September 1851
I hate that my motive for visiting a friend should be that I want society; that it should lie in my poverty and weakness, and not in his and my riches and strength.—Journal, 14 February 1852
I hate the present modes of living and getting a living.—Journal, 1 November 1855
I have as much property as I can command and use.—Journal, 26 January 1841
I have been making pencils all day, and then at evening walked to see an old schoolmate who is going to help make Welland Canal navigable for ships round Niagara. He cannot see any such motives and modes of living as I; professes not to look beyond securing certain "creature comforts". And so we go silently different ways . . .—Journal, 17 March 1842
I have faith that the man who redeemed some acres of land the past summer redeemed also some parts of his character.—Journal, 1 March 1852
I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office, and the bank; and, as a necessary part of the machinery, they kept a bell, a big gun, and a fire-engine, at convenient places.—Walden
I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive there some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day.—Walden
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes . . .
When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me gravely, "They do not make them so now," not emphasizing the "They" at all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates . . . We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same . . .—Walden
I should like not to exchange any of my life for money.—Thoreau to H. G. O. Blake, 31 December 1856
