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The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau
Related topics: Wisdom Life Human-Nature Psychology Perspective Open Insight
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is danger that we lose sight of
what our friend is absolutely,
while considering what she is to us alone.
- Henry David Thoreau
Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through,
and you could go in the back way.
- Henry David Thoreau
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me
was when one asked me what I thought,
and attended to my answer.
- Henry David Thoreau
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes.
They are kind to one another's dreams.
- Henry David Thoreau
The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.
It is an intelligence above language.
- Henry David Thoreau
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
- Henry David Thoreau
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
- 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
Not until we are lost
do we begin to understand ourselves.
- Henry David Thoreau
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
- Henry David Thoreau
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
- Henry David Thoreau
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
- 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
Every generation laughs at the old fashions,
but follows religiously the new.
- 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
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
May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- Henry David Thoreau
Ignorance and bungling with love
are better than wisdom and skill without.
- Henry David Thoreau
I have a great deal of company in the house,
especially in the morning when nobody calls.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
- Henry David Thoreau
How could youths better learn to live
than by at once trying the experiment of living?
- Henry David Thoreau
The heart is forever inexperienced.
- Henry David Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau
What is called genius is the
abundance of life and health.
- Henry David Thoreau
Those whom we can love, we can hate;
to others we are indifferent.
- Henry David Thoreau
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
- Henry David Thoreau
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
- 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
In human intercourse the tragedy begins,
not when there is misunderstanding about words,
but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root.
- 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
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
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
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
The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
- Henry David Thoreau
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau
An unclean person is universally a slothful one.
- Henry David Thoreau
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
- Henry David Thoreau
Truths and roses have thorns about them.
- Henry David Thoreau
I have found that hollow,
which even I had relied on for solid.
- Henry David Thoreau
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David Thoreau
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?
Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
- Henry David Thoreau
To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing.
None is excluded, but excludes himself.
You have only to push aside the curtain.
- Henry David Thoreau
Could a greater miracle take place
than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
- Henry David Thoreau
What is once well done is done forever.
- Henry David Thoreau
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful
than Thor with his hammer.
The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
- Henry David Thoreau
If you have built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.
- Henry David Thoreau
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
- Henry David Thoreau
To have done anything just for money
is to have been truly idle.
- Henry David Thoreau
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked,
in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Henry David Thoreau
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life
are not only not indispensable,
but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
- Henry David Thoreau
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
- Henry David Thoreau
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know,
can any work be humble or disgusting?
Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder,
the means by which we are translated?
- Henry David Thoreau
I had three chairs in my house;
one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
- 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
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nature and human life are as various
as our several constitutions.
Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
- Henry David Thoreau
Being is the great explainer.
- Henry David Thoreau
Books can only reveal us to ourselves,
and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
- Henry David Thoreau
Simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau
Many men go fishing all of their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
- Henry David Thoreau
All this worldly wisdom was once
the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
- 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
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
- Henry David Thoreau
We shall see but a little way if
we require to understand what we see.
- 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
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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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