Henry David Thoreau : Citations, œuvres et poèmes

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

Love must be as much a light as it is a flame.

The greatest art is to shape the quality of the day.

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

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.

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

An unclean person is universally a slothful one.

Live the life you've dreamed.

The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.

If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.