Henry David Thoreau, head and shoulders, with a fringe of beard under the chin, a dark coat and a bow tie, engraved in an oval among red and gold flowers and green leaves.
After Benjamin D. Maxham, 1856. AI‑generated.

Henry David Thoreau

1817–1862

9 genuine quotes, each found in the text, and 2 wrongly credited to Thoreau.

American essayist and naturalist from Concord, Massachusetts, a Transcendentalist and friend of Emerson, who lived two years in a cabin at Walden Pond and went to jail rather than pay a poll tax that supported slavery and war. His lines are usually his own, in his own voice, but they circulate trimmed: the self-help forms often drop his qualifications and his irony.

Check a Thoreau quote

FrontispieceMade by an image model after Benjamin D. Maxham’s daguerreotype of Henry David Thoreau (1856, public domain), in the manner of Arts and Crafts (1860–1920). The likeness is the original’s; this picture is AI‑generated and not historical. The endpaper behind it is an AI‑generated pattern in the same manner.

Genuine Thoreau quotes

  1. The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

    A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), “Wednesday”, the essay on Friendship (p. 286 in the first edition, 1849).

  2. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

    Walden (1854), Chapter 1, “Economy”.

  3. Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

    Walden (1854), Reading.

  4. Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

    Walden (1854), The Pond in Winter.

  5. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

    Walden (1854), Chapter 2, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”.

  6. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

    Walden (1854), Chapter 18, “Conclusion”.

  7. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

    Walden (1854), Chapter 18, “Conclusion”.

  8. Simplify, simplify.

    Walden (1854), Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.

  9. Things do not change; we change.

    Walden (1854), Conclusion.

Quotes wrongly credited to Thoreau

  1. Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

    Not found. It is not in Thoreau’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

  2. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

    Not found. It is not in Thoreau’s works, and who first wrote it is not known.

Paraphrased: Thoreau’s thought, in other words

  1. What a man thinks of himself becomes his fate.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Walden (1854), Chapter 1, “Economy”.

  2. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Walden (1854), Chapter 18, “Conclusion”.

  3. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

    Paraphrase. The idea is in Walden (1854), Economy.

The works we hold

Quotes are looked up word for word in these texts. The number is how many genuine quotes here come from each.

WorkYearGenuine quotes
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers18491
Walden Walden; or, Life in the Woods18548

Editions and translations

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