For my money, no other American author's quotes are as meaningful or heartfelt as Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau's quotes are engraved in my heart and mind, speaking to me softly from the quiet recesses, telling me to find passion and to live my life to the full. Henry David Thoreau wasn't simply a writer, he was a philosopher and pioneer of the transcendentalist movement along with his contemporary and friend Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Thoreau was also a college professor and an accomplished poet. He was a prolific writer, commenting on government, society, friendship, poetry, solitude, and nature. Thoreau's writings and quotes have greatly influenced the way that I live my life and I wanted to share them with you, plus a brief commentary on of them. I know I've already quoted Thoreau in many of my other hubs, but I've been pondering his writings a lot these past few weeks and want to share some more with you. The first quote by Thoreau is my favorite, a beautiful definition of passion and what it means to live life to the full. It's from Walden, arguably Thoreau's greatest work.

“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. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.”

“When we are unhurried and wise we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute value, that only petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality.”

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

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them."

Thoreau was a lover of life, a natural philosopher who knew the heart of man, and spoke often of humanity and meaning.  He was a fighter against the status quo, refusing to live according to the common standards of the age.  That's what I love most about his writing and quotes on life.

Next is a quote from Thoreau's book Cape Cod. The quote showcases Thoreau's unmatched ability to describe nature, applying humanity and those deeply rooted truths about mankind that are so difficult to define.

“I picked up a bottle half buried in the wet sand, covered with barnacles, but stoppled tight, and half full of red ale, which still smacked of juniper,—all that remained I fancied from the wreck of a rowdy world,—that great salt sea on the one hand, and this little sea of ale on the other, preserving their separate characters. What if it could tell us its adventures over countless ocean waves! Man could not be man through such ordeals as it had passed. But as I poured it slowly out on to the sand, it seemed to me that man himself was like a half-emptied bottle of pale ale, which Time had drunk so far, yet stoppled tight for a while, and drifting about in the ocean of circumstances, but destined ere-long to mingle with the surrounding waves, or be spilled amid the sands of a distant shore.”

The other Thoreau Quote on nature that I love comes from the book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, where Thoreau took a weeklong trip with his brother in a small boat.

"Two men in a skiff, whom we passed hereabouts floating buoyantly amid the reflections of the trees like a feather in midair, or a leaf which is wafted gently from its twig to the water without turning over, seemed still in their element and to have very delicately availed themselves of the natural laws. Their floating there was a beautiful and successful experiment in natural philosophy, and it served to ennoble in our eyes the art of navigation; for as birds fly and fishes swim, so these men sailed. It reminded us how much fairer and nobler all the actions of man might be, and that our life in its whole economy might be as beautiful as the fairest works of art or nature."

The third reason why Thoreau has been so pivotal to my views on life, is because of his encouragement to all to live a life of simplicity. With things like sustainable living and going green coming to the forefront of societal issues, voluntary simplicity is something that most could use a good measure of in our current world and national economy.

“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.”

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say let your affairs be as one, two, three and to a hundred or a thousand… We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.”

"For my greatest skill has been to want but little."

Civil Disobedience was one of the most controversial books of its time. Thoreau's call for the abolition of slavery and the war on Mexico stuck a deep chord within the people of his day. The way he opens the book, "The govenment which governs best is the one which governs least," shows that the book is going to have a polarizing effect. Here are a few quotes from Civil Disobedience.

"Why has every man a conscience? I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desireable to ciltivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right."

"Law never made a men a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice."

"Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why does is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?"

Thanks for reading. For more quotes, romantic thoughts, and reflections on life, check out my blog:

Things I've Learned While Roaming the Earth