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
actual choose difficult direct direction exist fain ideal interior liable love magnetism path perfectly stupidity taken travel wrong yield
I belive that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.
american-author crowded rather sit solitude velvet
I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
absolutely actual bored commonly confined confusion elements essential far few greater harmony ignorance infer infinite knew law laws mountain nature notions number outline particular points result results scientists seemingly though varies
If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.
priest support taxed
I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster
last lost occurred
I did not know at first what ailed me. At last it occurred to me that what I had lost was a country.
morning sun
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
entire fishing knowing lives men purpose
Many men go fishing their entire lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.
fish fishing knowing lives men
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.
days entry good possible present ridiculous tucked
She sits composedly sentinel, with paws tucked under her, a good part of her days at present by some ridiculous little hole, the possible entry of a mouse.
central men nearer science truth
Men are probably nearer the central truth in their superstitions than in their science
men tools
Men have become the tools of their trade.
fools men tools
Men have become the fools of their tools
experience health requires wholesome
One must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.
along behind bones cannot farmer food furnishes jerk material plow raw says spite system talks vegetable walking
One farmer says to me, ''You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;'' and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.