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
law unjust endeavor
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
attitude flower thorns
I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.
eternity
Read not the Times, read the Eternities.
independent politics enlightened
There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived.
change nature business
All change is a miracle to contemplate, but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.
should ends sentences
A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.
rebellion demon behavior
if i repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. what demon possessed me that i behaved so well?
nature garden animal
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
humility light darkness
Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
life-and-love inspirational-life mean
However mean your life is, meet it and live it.
truth honesty believe
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
trust fate track
Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then.
summer moving mean
The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of robbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested of more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, and by means of windows even admit the light and with a lamp lengthen out the day.
love romantic soulmate
Love must be as much a light as it is a flame.