Quotes by Henry David Thoreau

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow unless he sweats easier than I do.

For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.

A man is rich in proportion of the number of things he can afford to let alone.

A change of fortune hurts a wise man no more than a change of the moon.

But ah! think what you do when you run into debt. You give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay on time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor; you will make poor pitiful sneaking excuses, and by degrees, come to lose your veracity, and sink into base downright lying. Whereas a free born Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or speak to any man living.

He that hath a trade hath an estate.