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
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.
rubber way obstacles
Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.
feet atmosphere desire
My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.
summer believe world
Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.
errors long sorrow
One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors for to dwell long upon them is to add to the offense, and repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by somewhat better, and which is as free and original as if they had not been.
cheating may ethics-and-morals
Don't be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.
vices morality life-is
Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.
hate
We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.
trust thinking care
I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.
motivation eye may
Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.
nature significant piety
The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.
cities swamps fields
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps.
summer kings winter
Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.