On days when it’s hard to get outside because of the weather or poor health or responsibilities, I like to turn to some of my favourite quotes by Henry David Thoreau to mentally transport me into nature and to still cultivate my growing love of the outdoors. Thoreau writes about life in the mid-1800s, but he could easily be describing life in 2025 at times. He questions our relationship (of lack of) with nature, our eagerness to seek employment and the value of that employment in our lives, our lack of appreciation of free time or of the nature world, our pursuit of money, our willingness to go with the crowd rather than question and forage our own identities. For me, Thoreau has always been one of the few writers I return to again and again when I am questioning what my role in life is, what I define as my purpose, what I prioritise, and in general, what.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from Thoreau’s lesser known works. Walden we will tackle another day!

“for in the coldest day, and on the the bleakest hill, the traveler cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth.”
– A Winter Walk

“One might have thought that these were falls, and that falls were not to be waded through with impunity, like a mud-puddle. There was really danger of their losing their sublimity in losing their power to harm us. Familiarity breeds contempt.”
– Ktaadn

“If a man walk in the woods for love of them hard of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”
– Life Without Principle

“Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.”
– Life Without Principle

“The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse.”
– Life Without Principle

“Really to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a universal fact, would preserve us sane for ever.”
– Life Without Principle

“I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of tending to trivial things, so that all of our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.”
– Life Without Principle