Henry David Thoreau Quotes

28 quotes from Henry David Thoreau on investing, entrepreneurship and motivation.

On investing

A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone.
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them.
Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well.
No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to.
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
Things do not change we change.
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
It is not enought to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.
Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Whate'er we leave to God God does and blesses us.
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
The world is but a canvas for our imagination.
It is not enough to be busy so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
The true price of anything you do is the amount of time you exchange for it.
We are constantly invited to be what we are.
The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.