Henry David Thoreau Quotes

People often tell me I could be a great man. I'd rather be a good man.

To know what virtue is is not enough; we must endeavor to possess and to practice it, or in some other manner actually ourselves to become good.

But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

All the devils respect virtue.

It is better to will the good than to know the truth.

It must be a good thing to be good or ivrybody wudden't be pretendin' he was.

Honesty is nothin' compared to decency.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

Morality is truth in full bloom.

Our capacity for production and enjoyment is a function, in the last analysis, of our character, our integrity.

Purpose ... is held to be most closely connected with virtue, and to be a better token of our character than are even our acts.

Ethics, decency and morality are the real soldiers

People are either good or they're not. Religion doesn't make anybody good, I don't think.

Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by how one thinks and acts.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Throughout my life, I have always tried to do what is right.

There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

I've never had any desire to be good. I don't like goodness particularly.

Integrity is the core of our character. Without integrity, we have a weak foundation upon which to build other Christlike characteristics.

I do not want to suggest that you have to be religious to be moral.

People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends.

I do not believe with the Rochefoucaults and the Montaignes that fourteen out of fifteen men are rogues. I believe a great abatement from that proportion may be made in favor of general honesty.