Humanities › Literature 'Walden' Quotes Henry David Thoreau's famous nonfiction classic Share Flipboard Email Print RhythmicQuietude/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0 Literature Quotations Love Quotes Great Lines from Movies and Television Quotations For Holidays Best Sellers Classic Literature Plays & Drama Poetry Shakespeare Short Stories Children's Books By Esther Lombardi Esther Lombardi Literature Expert M.A., English Literature, California State University - Sacramento B.A., English, California State University - Sacramento Esther Lombardi, M.A., is a journalist who has covered books and literature for over twenty years. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on February 21, 2019 Henry David Thoreau's Walden was published in 1854. The essay details the experiment in personal independence and self-reliance that Thoreau underwent, starting on July 4, 1845. During this period he lived on Walden Pond. Famous Quotations "Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world." - Henry David Thoreau, 1. Economy, Walden"I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust." - Henry David Thoreau, 1. Economy, Walden"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line." - Henry David Thoreau, 1. Economy, Walden"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion." - Henry David Thoreau, 1. Economy, Walden"To be awake is to be alive." - Henry David Thoreau, 2. Where I Lived and What I Lived For, Walden"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." - Henry David Thoreau, 2. Where I Lived and What I Lived For, Walden"I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born." - Henry David Thoreau, 2. Where I Lived and What I Lived For, WaldenI have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls." - Henry David Thoreau, 5. Solitude, Walden"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." - Henry David Thoreau, 9. The Ponds, Walden"You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns." - Henry David Thoreau, 12. Brute Neighbors, Walden"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." - Henry David Thoreau, 18. Conclusion, Walden"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." - Henry David Thoreau, 18. Conclusion, Walden"However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names." - Henry David Thoreau, 18. Conclusion, Walden Cite this Article Format mla apa chicago Your Citation Lombardi, Esther. "'Walden' Quotes." ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/walden-quotes-741832. Lombardi, Esther. (2021, February 16). 'Walden' Quotes. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/walden-quotes-741832 Lombardi, Esther. "'Walden' Quotes." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/walden-quotes-741832 (accessed May 28, 2023). copy citation