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
respect men reality
When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?
mean riches wealth
Wealth cannot purchase any great private solace or convenience. Riches are only the means of sociality.
truth rebuke turns
Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.
truth i-am-sorry bitterness
Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
nice simple doe
There may be something petty in a refined taste; it easily degenerates into effeminacy. It does not consider the broadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and curious or nice only.
character curves focus
As all curves have reference to their centres or foci, so all beauty of character has reference to the soul, and is a graceful gesture of recognition or waving of the body toward it.
college men space
Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge college is as solitary as a dervis in the desert.
flower men law
Simplicity is the law of Nature for man as well as for flowers. When the tapestry (corolla) of the nuptial bed (calyx) is excessive, luxuriant, it is unproductive. The fertile flowers are single, not double.
sadness joy
Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.
beautiful nature progress
If we see nature as pausing, immediately all mortifies and decays; but seen as progressing, she is beautiful.
god mean names
It is not when I am going to meet him, but when I am just turning away and leaving him alone, that I discover what God is. I say, God. I am not sure that that is the name. You will know what I mean.
friendship may needs
We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves, that there may be grounds enough for friendship.
friendship men inspire
We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.
friendship mistake blessing
Friendship is the unspeakable joy and blessing that result to two or more individuals who from constitution sympathize. Such natures are liable to no mistakes, but will know each other through thick and thin. Between two by nature alike and fitted to sympathize, there is no veil, and there can be no obstacle. Who are the estranged? Two friends explaining.