Henry David Thoreau Quotes

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.

I am totally unattached to material items.

I'm no Thoreau.

Society, to be sure, does not like this very well; it saith, Whoso goes to walk alone, accuses the whole world; he declares all to be unfit to be his companions; it is very uncivil, nay, insulting; Society will retaliate.

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.

What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it.

I often think about, 'How do we return to a simpler way of living? Is there some way that we can start to think of each other as human beings again, instead of worshiping money, instead of worshiping electronics, instead of worshiping getting ahead just for me?'

My customer isn't wrapped up in labels and money.

Individualism is rather like innocence; there must be something unconscious about it.

The American dream is a crock. Stop wanting everything. Everyone should wear jeans and have three T-shirts, eat rice and beans.

I'm very big on doing my own thing.

You don't have to burn books, you don't have to rebel against teachers to rebel; to rebel is to truly own your own self.

I change my mind so much, I'm better going on my own. Shopping is a selfish activity anyway.

I am definitely an individual.

When you're reading Thoreau you look at Hollywood differently, let me tell ya!

I don't like to attach myself to material things.

I appreciate individualism.

My mind is my own church.

Spoiled. That's all it's about - can't live without this, can't live without that. You can live without anything you weren't born with, and you can make it through on even half of that.

I am a rank individualist.

All man-made religions are limited. I go my own way.

We have allowed ourselves to be defined by our consumption instead of by our ability to move beyond it.

My soul desires a pre-industrial world, and since I can't have that, I don't really care for anything material.

I'm totally committed to the cause of individuality. That's the only thing I stand by: independence.

But egoism is more than this. It is the realization by the individual that he is above all institutions and all formulas; that they exist only so far as he chooses to make them his own by accepting them.