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.
Walden (1854), Conclusion
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Henry David Thoreau quotes
1817-1862 ยท Philosophers and ancient wisdom
American essayist and naturalist best known for Walden.
10 quotes, 10 traced to where Thoreau said or wrote them.
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.
Walden (1854), Conclusion
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Walden (1854), Economy
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.
Walden (1854), Conclusion
Simplify, simplify.
Walden (1854)
Things do not change; we change.
Walden (1854), Conclusion
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Walden (1854), Conclusion
It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?
Letter to Harrison Blake (1857)
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
Walden (1854), Economy
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.
Walden (1854), Where I Lived, and What I Lived For