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 actual bored commonly confined confusion elements essential far few greater harmony ignorance infer infinite knew law laws mountain nature notions number outline particular points result results scientists seemingly though varies
If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveler, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.
priest support taxed
I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster
last lost occurred
I did not know at first what ailed me. At last it occurred to me that what I had lost was a country.
achieving american-author goals motivational
What you get by achieving your goals is to as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
body either good soul work
Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul is the work of the soul, and good for either is the work of the other.
flowers fragrance greet immortal life nature night
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal -- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation . . .
civilization devoured glance lived marrow raw whose wildness
Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure,-as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw
harmony melody
Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody
actual choose difficult direct direction exist fain ideal interior liable love magnetism path perfectly stupidity taken travel wrong yield
I belive that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.
affect highest quality
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts.
affect critical elevated highest man quality worthy
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
born inherit property rather
To inherit property is not to be born - is to be stillborn, rather
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.