Henry David Thoreau Quotations: Truth & Wisdom
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well as the truth. This alone wears well.—Walden
On every hand we observe a truly wise practice, in education, in morals, and in the arts of life, the embodied wisdom of many an ancient philosopher.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Only lovers know the value and magnanimity of truth.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail . . . Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.—Walden
Poetry implies the whole truth. Philosophy expresses a particle of it.—Journal, 26 January 1852
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.—Walden
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.—Walden
So far as the natural history is concerned, you often have your choice between uninteresting truth and interesting falsehood.—Journal, 5 March 1860
So far from being false or fabulous in the common sense, it contains only enduring and essential truth, the I and you, the here and there, the now and then, being omitted.—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light,—to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure. There is a higher law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead human carcass is a man.—The Maine Woods
