HENRY DAVID THOREAU

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

(1817 - 1862)

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This page is for my favorite passages

From the writings of Thoreau

I'll be adding to this page periodically

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“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” 

~Henry David Thoreau

(Walden: Or, Life in the Woods)

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"What a singular fact for an angel visitant to this earth to carry back in his note-book, that men were forbidden to expose their bodies under the severest penalties!"

~Henry David Thoreau

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An early-morning walk 

is a blessing for the whole day. 

~Henry David Thoreau

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“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” 

~Henry David Thoreau

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Simplify your life. 

Don’t waste the years struggling 

for things that are unimportant. 

Don’t burden yourself with possessions. 

Keep your needs and wants simple 

and enjoy what you have. 

Don’t destroy your peace of mind 

by looking back, worrying about the past. 

Live in the present. 

Simplify!

~Henry David Thoreau

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"We cannot adequately appreciate this aspect of nature if we approach it with any taint of human pretense. It will elude us if we allow artifacts like clothing to intervene between ourselves and this Other. To apprehend it, we cannot be naked enough."

~Henry David Thoreau

(In wildness is the preservation of the world)