Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreauwas an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Resistance to Civil Government, an argument for disobedience to an unjust state...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth12 July 1817
CountryUnited States of America
fate men thinking
See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
live-life creating finding-yourself
Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself. So live the life you imagined.
men community would-be
I am convinced that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.
speech hearing shouting
Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.
fortune incessant good-fortune
I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune.
intellectual alive poetic
The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive.
mind three pieces
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.
taken condolences eulogy
Every blade in the field - Every leaf in the forest - lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up.
blood flesh helping
I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up.
philosophy discovery feet
My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,—a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.
home men want
Man wanted a home, a place for warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.
inspirational weakness wells
Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.
learning men judging
But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little have been tried.
men soul church
The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.