Philosophy Quote by Henry David Thoreau — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

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

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”

“Truth strikes us from behind and in the dark, as well as from before and in broad daylight.”

“Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.”

“Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.”

“Any fool can make a rule”

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”

“You cannot connect with anyone except through reality.”

“Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.”

“We must have a new mythology, but it must place itself at the service of ideas, it must become a mythology of reason. Mythology must become philosophical, so that the people may become rational, and philosophy must become mythological, so that philosophers may become sensible. If we do not give ideas a form that is aesthetic, i.e., mythological, they will hold no interest for people.”

“My conception of freedom. - The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it - what it costs us. I give an example. Liberal institutions immediately cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: subsequently there is nothing more thoroughly harmful to freedom than liberal institutions. One knows, indeed, what they bring about: they undermine the will to power, they are the levelling of mountain and valley exalted to a moral principle, they make small, cowardly and smug - it is the herd animal which triumphs with them every time.”