A quote by Henry David Thoreau (2024)

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What is the dream quote 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.

Walden remains his most famous work, the account of his two years “in the woods” at Walden Pond, a lake in Concord, Massachusetts.

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant.

The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes that slumbers all the rest of the day and night.

Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel the cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

More Quotes on Dreams

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams.

Thoreau's central message in Walden is to live simply, independently, and wisely. He suggests that people try to live free and uncommitted, away from things that overcomplicate life such as exchange economy and modern labor. He also emphasizes the importance of engaging with Nature as closely and directly as possible.

A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state.

Death is the penalty we all pay for the privilege of life. All say, How hard it is we have to die,-a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.

What is Thoreau's motto? ›

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Thoreau suggested direct actions people of his time could take to oppose immoral government spending on slavery and the Mexican-War War. Those who did not agree with the system of slavery or with the war, he argues, could express their disapproval by refusing to pay taxes.

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour.

Henry David Thoreau began most days the same way: with a brisk early morning swim. After he retreated to a cabin in the woods of Concord, Mass., in the mid-19th century, that ritual bath in Walden Pond became a fixture of his days, a “cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity.”

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be engulfed, every hill shall be exalted and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.

“Well,” said George, “we'll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we'll just say the hell with goin' to work, and we'll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an' listen to the rain comin' down on the roof.”

“Dream big dreams! Imagine that you have no limitations and then decide what's right before you decide what's possible.” —Brian Tracey.

If the mind's not strong, the body acts weak, even if it's not. If the mind says it's too cold or too rainy or too windy to run, the body will be more than happy to agree. If the mind says it would be better to rest or recover or cut practice, the body will be glad to oblige.