Henry David Thoreau Quotations: RELATIONSHIPS
If 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 1858
Improve every opportunity to express yourself in writing, as if it were your last.—Journal, 17 December 1851
In 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 1857
In friendship we worship moral beauty without the formality of religion. —Journal, 1837-1847
In most books, the I, of first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference.—Walden
In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats more easier than I do.—Walden
It is folly to attempt to educate children within a city. The first step must be to remove them out of it.—Journal, 25 July 1851
It is enough if I have pleased myself with writing—I am then sure of an audience.—Journal, 24 March 1842
It is far more independent to travel on foot. You have to sacrifice so much to the horse. You cannot choose the most agreeable places in which to spend the noon, commanding the finest views, because commonly there is no water there, or you cannot get there with your horse.—Journal, 4 July 1858
