Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

It is easier to be virtuous than it is to appear so, and it pays better.

Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will or no.

Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.

Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.

To give oneself ernestly to securing righteousness and justice among the people, and while respecting the gods and demons, to keep aloof from them, that may be called wisdom.

A knight whose heart is set upon the Way, but who is ashamed of wearing shabby clothes and eating coarse food, is not worth calling into counsel.

The man who wears the yellow-dyed robe but is not free from stains himself, without self-restraint and integrity, is unworthy of the robe.

He who talks much about virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspected; it is shrewdly guessed that where there is great preaching there will be little almsgiving.

It will not do to be saints at meeting and sinners everywhere else.

Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.

It is motive alone that gives real value to the actions of men, and disinterestedness puts the cap to it.

The world is ashamed of being virtuous.

Demand not that I am the equal of the greatest, only that I am better than the wicked.

True greatness is sovereign wisdom. We are never deceived by our virtues.

After all, why be good? How many will actually believe it of us?

Justice shines in very smoky homes, and honors the righteous; but the gold-spangled mansions where the hands are unclean she leaves with eyes averted.

It is all a mistake that we cannot be good and manly without being scrupulously and studiously good. There is too much mechanism about our virtue.

If you have to do with one who is unquestionably a slanderer, do not excuse him by calling him frank and free-spoken; do not call one who is notoriously vain, liberal and elegant; do not call dangerous levities mere simplicity; do not screen disobedience under the name of zeal; or arrogance, of frankness; or evil intimacy, of friendship. No, my friends, we must never, in our wish to shun slander, foster or flatter vice in others: but we must call evil evil, and sin sin, and so doing we shall serve God's glory.

Deliberate virtue is never worth much: The virtue of feeling or habit is the thing.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

He who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful ... will not, when in earnest, write them in ink.

A good example brings about so much good, but hypocrisy brings about so much evil.