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Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau
Related topics: Life Human-Nature Psychology Simplicity
There is danger that we lose sight of
what our friend is absolutely,
while considering what she is to us alone.
- Henry David Thoreau
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
- Henry David Thoreau
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through,
and you could go in the back way.
- Henry David Thoreau
The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.
It is an intelligence above language.
- Henry David Thoreau
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes.
They are kind to one another's dreams.
- Henry David Thoreau
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me
was when one asked me what I thought,
and attended to my answer.
- Henry David Thoreau
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- Henry David Thoreau
The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.
I have no wealth to bestow on him.
If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward.
Is not friendship divine in this?
- Henry David Thoreau
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl:
it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
- Henry David Thoreau
Every generation laughs at the old fashions,
but follows religiously the new.
- Henry David Thoreau
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
- Henry David Thoreau
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
- Henry David Thoreau
May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- Henry David Thoreau
The heart is forever inexperienced.
- Henry David Thoreau
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
- Henry David Thoreau
What is called genius is the
abundance of life and health.
- Henry David Thoreau
Ignorance and bungling with love
are better than wisdom and skill without.
- Henry David Thoreau
How could youths better learn to live
than by at once trying the experiment of living?
- Henry David Thoreau
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself,
than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
- Henry David Thoreau
I have a great deal of company in the house,
especially in the morning when nobody calls.
- Henry David Thoreau
Not until we are lost
do we begin to understand ourselves.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do what you love.
Know your own bone;
gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it,
and gnaw it still.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
- Henry David Thoreau
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau
The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
- Henry David Thoreau
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth,
so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.
To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again.
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over
the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
- Henry David Thoreau
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's
most effective criticism until you provoke him.
Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
- Henry David Thoreau
Make the most of your regrets;
never smother your sorrow,
but tend and cherish it till it comes to have
a separate and integral interest.
To regret deeply is to live afresh.
- Henry David Thoreau
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
- Henry David Thoreau
In human intercourse the tragedy begins,
not when there is misunderstanding about words,
but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
- Henry David Thoreau
An unclean person is universally a slothful one.
- Henry David Thoreau
Those whom we can love, we can hate;
to others we are indifferent.
- Henry David Thoreau
To a philosopher all news,
as it is called, is gossip,
and they who edit and read it
are old women over their tea.
- Henry David Thoreau
The youth gets together his materials
to build a bridge to the moon,
or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth,
and, at length, the middle-aged man
concludes to build a woodshed with them.
- Henry David Thoreau
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants.
The question is: What are we busy about?
- Henry David Thoreau
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do not be too moral.
You may cheat yourself out of much life.
So aim above morality.
Be not simply good;
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
What old people say you cannot do,
you try and find that you can.
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- Henry David Thoreau
No face which we can give to a matter
will stead us so well at last as the truth.
This alone wears well.
- Henry David Thoreau
The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools,
but the gentle touches of air and water
working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
- Henry David Thoreau
The universe is wider than our views of it.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
- Henry David Thoreau
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is what a man thinks of himself
that really determines his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations.
For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
- Henry David Thoreau
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,
not by mechanical aid, but by
an infinite expectation of the dawn.
- Henry David Thoreau
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.
Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
- Henry David Thoreau
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
- Henry David Thoreau
If a man loses 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.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nature will bear the closest inspection.
She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf,
and take an insect view of its plain.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
- Henry David Thoreau
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?
Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you,
opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
- Henry David Thoreau
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
- Henry David Thoreau
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- Henry David Thoreau
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal,
and then leap in the dark to our success.
- Henry David Thoreau
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
- Henry David Thoreau
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
- Henry David Thoreau
The man who goes alone can start today;
but he who travels with another
must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau
We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
What is once well done is done forever.
- Henry David Thoreau
All this worldly wisdom was once
the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
- Henry David Thoreau
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Jonathan Lockwood Huie
"The Philosopher of Happiness" - is the author of 100 Secrets for Living a Life You Love, co-author of Simply An Inspired Life, speaker, personal coach, and creator of the popular Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote free email.>
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