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
mean sunshine moon
Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as if they knew its qualities very well, and despised them; as owls might talk of sunshine,--none of your sunshine!--but this word commonly means merely something which they do not understand,--which they are abed and asleep to, however much it may be worth their while to be up and awake to it.
book sunshine water
In an ancient and dead language, any recognition of living nature attracts us. These are such sentences as were written while grass grew and water ran. It is no small recommendation when a book will stand the test of mere unobstructed sunshine and daylight.
nature science sunshine
He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. Butwe would not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described. They are truths in physics because they are true in ethics.
winter sunshine fire
What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day?
egg nest recorded side thoughts-and-thinking welcomed
Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg by the side of which more will be laid.
adventure canadians carried clear england exposure hardship led possessed spirit though
The Canadians of those days, at least, possessed a roving spirit of adventure which carried them further, in exposure to hardship and danger, than ever the New England colonist went, and led them, though not to clear and colonize the wilderness, yet
american-author companion found love
I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
advances common directions dreams endeavors life meet success unexpected
If one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
advances common direction endeavors life meet success unexpected
If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
came contact destiny doubt eating gradual human leave left savage surely tribes
I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.
abroad among companion found lonely man men stay thinking
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.
bottom current detect divine drink eternity god himself indeed lapse moment occasions places present sandy shallow stream thin time true
In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.
clean conscience greater lower man patch sound stood sure
No man has ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his cloths; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience
contact daily life shown solid talk wind
Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in Nature- daily to be shown matter, To come in contact with it- rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks. The solid earth! . . .