Henry David Thoreau Quotes

People don't alter. They may with enormous difficulty modify themselves, but they never really change.

The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within.

He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself, or he loses his labor.

One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.

By acting as you wish yourself to be, in due course you will become as you act.

Everything changes when you change.

Lord, reform Thy world, beginning with me.

By prizing heartfulness above faultlessness, we may reap more from our effort because we're more likely to be changed by it.

Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years.

You cannot change what you are, only what you do.

The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.

Suffering is nature's way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and to the nonegocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth. People should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters.

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change

If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior. In other words, begin to act the part, as well as you can, of the person you would rather be, the person you most want to become. Gradually, the old, fearful person will fade away.

I cleaned up. I quit drinking, I quit doing drugs, I quit stealing, I quit breaking into houses, I tried to quit being a bad human being. I developed a conscience later in life than many. I call it the lost-time-regained dynamic.

It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth.

We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads to our transformation.

Most people would rather change their circumstances to improve their lives when instead they need to change themselves to improve their circumstances. They put in just enough effort to distance themselves from their problems without ever trying to go after the root, which can often be found in themselves. Because they don't try to change the source of their problems, their problems keep coming back at them.

When you see a good man, try to emulate his example, and when you see a bad man, search yourself for his faults.

I'd have to say no, people don't change, but they can learn to behave differently.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ can make bad men good and good men better, can alter human nature, and can change human lives.

When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can't make them change if they don't want to, just like when they do want to, you can't stop them.

Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you've got.

Repentance is not completed by a single act, it must be incorporated into our mind, till it become a fixed state, arising from a continual sense of our need of it.

It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.