The writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau was one of the most important American literary figures and philosophers of the nineteenth century. Thoreau works still read widely today include his book Walden; or, Life in the Woods and his political essay Civil Disobedience, and he continues to be quoted regularly in all manner of circumstances.

However, not all the sayings attributed to Thoreau are necessarily accurate quotations from his work, and in some cases, they are actually the work of other writers that became confused with Thoreau’s writings over time. Here is an alphabetical look at a number of popular quotes commonly misattributed to Henry David Thoreau.

1. “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.”
2. “Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
3. “Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.”
4. “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”
5. “What you get by reaching your goals is not nearly so important as what you become by reaching them.”

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.”

A common form of misquotation of Thoreau is the addition of modern elements, such as shorter sentences and exclamation marks, which, as The New York Times has noted, was not characteristic of his actual work.

A popular Thoreau-derived quote seen on greeting cards is the one above, which is a misquotation from a more formal sentence in Walden: “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.”

“Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”

There are some quotes attributed to Thoreau that researchers have discovered actually predate his own work. One of those is the famous quote above, which describes the nature of happiness. This quote is commonly associated with Thoreau, and variations of this line can be found on motivational prints as well as on nature websites.

However, the line is not found in Thoreau’s own writings. Research by Quote Investigator has traced its first usage to an 1848 article in a New Orleans newspaper called The Daily Crescent, which ran an article offering a number of definitions for common words, and included the following one for happiness: “A butterfly, which when pursued, seems always just beyond your grasp; but if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” From this, the quotation eventually evolved into the popularly used one found today.

“Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.”

This inspirational quote about the value of libraries has been frequently cited over the years, and has been attributed to Thoreau on a number of occasions, including by the McCormick County Library in South Carolina.

However, the author of this quote is not Thoreau but the writer Anne Herbert, who was involved in editing the CoEvolution Quarterly, a journal which explored science, politics, and the environment which would later evolve into the Whole Earth Review magazine.

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

This quote is often used to accompany images of great physical or mental endeavors, and sometimes used as a straightforward caption to images of fishing itself. However, research by the American Museum of Fly Fishing has found that the line was not written by Thoreau at all.

There are several different variations of this quote, including “Many men fish all their lives without ever realizing that it is not the fish they are after” and “Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” However, none of them are actually by the writer most commonly connected to them. 

According to Jan Harold Brunvand of the AMFF, the misquotation seems to have stemmed from the work of a couple of writers who paraphrased Thoreau’s ideas and applied them to fishing. Over time, these interpretations became conflated with things Thoreau had actually said.

“What you get by reaching your goals is not nearly so important as what you become by reaching them.”

This popular quote has served as a useful motivation for people to keep pursuing their aims in service to how they develop along the way, not just for what is accomplished in the end. 

However, not only is this quote not by Thoreau; it is actually from the writings of someone who was not born until many years after Thoreau’s death. This inspirational quote about goals is actually by Zig Ziglar (born Hilary Hinton Ziglar), who made a successful career in motivational speaking in the late 20th century, not Thoreau.

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