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
education college division-of-labor
The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,--a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,--to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.
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.
education college progress
As with our colleges, so with a hundred "modern improvements"; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting a compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them.
education college thinking
I had a classmate who fitted for college by the lamps of a lighthouse, which was more light, we think, than the University afforded.
american-author fine house planet tolerable
What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
man meet pleased wild wish
I should be pleased to meet man in the woods. I wish he were to be encountered like wild caribous and moose.
great mankind poets works
The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them
almost far staying travel worth
Far travel, very far travel, or travail, comes to almost the worth of staying home.
Say what you have to say, not what you ought.
compared fate man opinion private public rather thinks weak
Public opinion is a weak tyrant, compared with our private opinion - what a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates his fate
compared man opinion private public rather thinks tyrant weak
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.
best books chance
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them all
beware clothes require
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
beware caution clothes require
Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes.