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
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.
priest support taxed
I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster
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 . . .
earnest explore infinitely land learn mysterious mystery require sea time
At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable.
beware clothes require
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
conforming conformity high life living opinion
As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.
cultivate desirable respect
It is not so desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right