The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an American writer and philosopher, known for Walden, an account of two years spent in a cabin by a pond in Massachusetts. His essay Civil Disobedience, written after he refused to pay a tax in protest against slavery and war, later influenced Gandhi and King.
About this theme: Time
Time is the one theme here where every author writes from the same position — none of them had more of it than they had. Seneca devoted an essay to it, and his central claim is uncomfortable: we are not given a short life, we spend it in a way that makes it seem short.
More by Henry David Thoreau
- Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
- Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit.
- Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.
- An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
More on Time
- Lost time is never found again.— Benjamin Franklin
- The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.— Chinese Proverb
- It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.— Seneca
- The life given us by nature is short, but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.— Cicero
- The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.— Nikola Tesla