Henry David Thoreau
writer · Massachusetts, USA · 1817–1862
A writer who built a cabin with his own hands by Walden Pond and lived there for two years and two months.
Posts
1854
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
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Walden
1854
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Walden, conclusion
1854
a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
Walden
1854
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
Walden, "Visitors"
1854
Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels.
Walden, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"
1854
I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper.
Walden, "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"
1854
We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.
Walden, "Economy"
1854
I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls.
Walden, "Solitude"
1854
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
Walden, "Economy"
1854
Things do not change; we change.
Walden, "Conclusion"
1854 · He goes on to deplore dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea
I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor…
Walden, "Higher Laws"
1 in 100 Billion · The social network of those who came before us