Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

Henry David Thoreau was an American author and philosopher known for his work 'Walden' and his advocacy for naturalism and civil disobedience.

Men Nature Life Thinking Book Inspirational
Born
July 12, 1817
Died
May 6, 1862
Quotes
2.8K
Rank
#46

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Henry David Thoreau quotes (page 55 of 139)

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"Give me the old familiar walk, postoffice and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten. We'll go nutting once more. We'll pluck the nut of the world, and crack it in the winter evenings. Theaters and all other sightseeing are puppet-shows in comparison. I will take another walk to the Cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, be out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds. Here I am at home. In the bare and bleached crust of the earth I recognize my friend."

Travel Home Winter
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"From my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason for a savage's preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit."

Men Apples Appreciate
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"We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same."

Funny Fashion Humorous
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"That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess."

Appreciate Virtue
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"A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as this brain."

Men Thinking Brain
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"Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance."

Art Distance Doe
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"I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also."

Food Long Serious
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"The vessel, though her masts be firm,Beneath her copper bears a worm."

Bears Worms Copper
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"Sphere Music - Some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then settle to earth again like dust; such are Noise, Discord, Jargon. But such only as spring heavenward, and I may catch from steeples and hilltops in their upward course, which are the more refined parts of the former, are the true sphere music - pure, unmixed music - in which no wail mingles."

Spring Dust Sound
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"There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men."

Men Littles Action
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"The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it."

Law Giving Use
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"Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such as toil gives to sour bread. The breath with which the poet utters his verse must be that by which he lives."

Sweet Integrity Holiday
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"If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see still upon the walls of the temple of Minerva the circular marks made by the shields taken from the enemy in the Persian war, which were suspended there. We have not far to seek for living and unquestionable evidence. The very dust takes shape and confirms some story which we had read."

Wall War Taken
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"Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows."

Men Space Solitude
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"Let no one think that I do not love the old ministers. They were, probably, the best men in their generation, and they deserve that their biographies should fill the pages of the town histories. If I could but hear the "glad tidings" of which they tell, and which, perchance, they heard, I might write in a worthier strain than this."

Writing Men Thinking
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"When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?"

Nature Garden Woods
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"But it is rather derogatory that your dwelling-place should be only a neighborhood to a great city,--to live on an inclined plane.I do not like their cities and forts, with their morning and evening guns, and sails flapping in one's eye. I want a whole continent to breathe in, and a good deal of solitude and silence, such as all Wall Street cannot buy,--nor Broadway with its wooden pavement. I must live along the beach, on the southern shore, which looks directly out to sea,--and see what that great parade of water means, that dashes and roars, and has not yet wet me, as long as I have lived."

Beach Morning Wall
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"If you would feel the full force of a tempest, take up your residence on the top of Mount Washington, or at the Highland Light, inTruro."

Light Tempest Force
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