If we dealt only with the false and dishonest, we should at last forget how to speak truth.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversIf we did not hear, however, we did listen, not without a reasonable expectation; that at least I have to tell,—only some utterly uncivilized, big-throated owl hooted loud and dismally in the drear and boughy wilderness, plainly not nervous about his solitary life, not afraid to hear the echoes of his voice there.
—The Maine WoodsIf we knew all things thus mechanically merely, should we know anything really?
—Journal, 14 December 1851If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets.
—WaldenIf you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.
—"Walking"If you aspire to anything better than politics, expect no cooperation from men. They will not further anything good. You must prevail of your own force, as a plant springs and grows by its own vitality.
—Journal, 3 April 1858If 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.
—WaldenIf you mean by hard times, times not when there is no bread, but when there is no cake, I have no sympathy with you.
—Journal, 28 January 1852If you wish to give a man a sense of poverty, give him a thousand dollars. The next hundred dollars he gets will not be worth more than ten that he used to get. Have pity on him; withhold your gifts.
—Journal, 20 January 1856If 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.
—Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 27 March 1848If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.
—"Life without Principle"Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversImprove every opportunity to express yourself in writing, as if it were your last.
—Journal, 17 December 1851In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change or accident.
—WaldenIn all the dissertations on language, men forget the language. that is, that is really universal, the inexpressible meaning that is in all things and everywhere, with which the morning and evening teem.
—Journal, 23 August 1845In books, that which is most generally interesting is what comes home to the most cherished private experience of the greatest number. It is not the book of him who has traveled the farthest over the surface of the globe, but of him who has lived the deepest and been the most at home.
—Journal, 20 November 1857In Boston yesterday an ornithologist said significantly, “If you held the bird in your hand—”; but I would rather hold it in my affections.
—Journal, 10 May 1854