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
friends my-friends amiable
I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified.
friends together forgotten
At death our friends and relatives either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart farther from us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.
fashion men shoes
When I would go a-visiting, I find that I go off the fashionable street,--not being inclined to change my dress,--to where man meets man, and not polished shoe meets shoe.
purple soldier becoming
When a soldier is hit by a cannonball, rags are as becoming as purple.
taken fit mood
Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic, and his trappings will have to serve that mood too.
death tree dies
Even trees do not die without a groan.
charity genius wells
You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else.
book miracle
The book exists for us, perchance, which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.
book healthy
At least let us have healthy books.
art book house
Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.
successful men medicine
Nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind than medicine. Quackery is a thing universal, and universally successful. In this case it becomes literally true that no imposition is too great for the credulity of men.
hours site
The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.
physiognomy active
We are all of us more or less active physiognomists.
names ancient virtue
In ancient days the Pythagoreans were used to change names with each other,--fancying that each would share the virtues they admired in the other.