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
absolutely destiny origin philosophers-and-philosophy sort
What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?
natural
How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!
agent break government injustice life requires stop
If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.
life
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.
good
Be not simply good - be good for something.
constant senses suffer
I have the habit of attention to such excess, that my senses get no rest - but suffer from a constant strain.
exaggerate expense life men praise regard
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?
require
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
apple desperate far haste hears however man mature measured music pace perhaps purpose soon step tree
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured and far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak.
above advice aim good morality simply
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
grateful thanksgiving
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.
life marrow
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.
I cannot read a single word of the Hindoos without being elevated.
dozen exactly five half might miles particular visited
I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.