Henry David Thoreau
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it…”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854), chapter “Economy”
Documented source
Attribution
Henry David Thoreau
Source
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854), chapter “Economy”
In full
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it…”
Status
Public domain in the United States
Every quote here is traced to a documented source. How we verify →
About this line
Thoreau wrote this after two years in a cabin he built himself, tracking every expense to the penny. His point wasn’t thrift — it was a unit of measure: the true price of anything is the amount of your one life you hand over to get it.
Why we carry this line
Not about money — about hours you don’t get back. I think about this when I say yes to something. I also remember “no” is a complete sentence.
Objects carrying this line
More from this authorHenry David Thoreau →