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
mother dream song
Christianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has dreamed a sad dream, and does not yet welcome the morning with joy. The mother tells her falsehoods to her child, but, thank heaven, the child does not grow up in its parent's shadow. Our mother's faith has not grown with her experience. Her experience has been too much for her. The lesson of life was too hard for her to learn.
truth son men
You have but little more to do than throw up your cap for entertainment these American days.... Farmers' sons will stare by the hour to see a juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than light.
strength real son
The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the toughest son ofearth and of Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance his fainting companions will recognize the God in him. It is the worshipers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world.
drinking son thinking
I know a good woman who thinks that her son lost his life because he took to drinking water only.
lying believe son
Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie; and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it.
song trying graves
If you will not try, you will go to your grave with your song still inside you.
song morning reading
In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men cling to this old song, because they still have moments of unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them an appetite for more.
good-life son fundraising
Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.
life song men
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
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.