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
along behind bones cannot farmer food furnishes jerk material plow raw says spite system talks vegetable walking
One farmer says to me, ''You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;'' and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.
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.
speak takes truth
It takes two to speak truth -- one to speak, and another to hear.
friend takes
A friend is one who takes me for what I am.
cultivate desirable law law-and-lawyers respect
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right.
call names
Let us make distinctions, call things by the right names
american-author companion found love
I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
heavenly humility reveals
Humility like the darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.
bend force government instant itself living losing man recent single though transmit vitality
This American government -- what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will.
cheapest man pleasures richest whose
That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest
american-author wilderness
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
desperate wisdom
It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
entire fishing knowing lives men purpose
Many men go fishing their entire lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.
expect harvest seed thoughts-and-thinking time
How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.