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
encouragement strong distance
Ah! I need solitude. I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon - to behold and commune with something grander than man. Their mere distance and unprofanedness is an infinite encouragement. it is with infinite yearning and aspiration that I seek solitude, more and more resolved and strong; but with a certain weakness that I seek society ever.
sloth laziness virtuous
The Slothful do not have the time to become virtuous or despicable.
afterlife world earth
Asked whether or not he believed in an afterlife, Thoreau quipped, "One world at a time."
humility light darkness
Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
learning light soul
With all your science can you tell me how it is, and when it is, that light comes into the soul?
get-well men rights
Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause - nor any charter of immunities and rights.
science men fishing
Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.
science library newspapers
What are the libraries of science but files of newspapers?
nature eye men
Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye. He must look through and beyond her.
summer memories lying
I pray that the life of this spring and summer may ever lie fair in my memory.
trust thinking may
I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
integrity men leisure
The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day.
last-words funny-famous-last-words knows
I did not know that we had ever quarreled.
dream bogs wilderness
It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such.