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In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

Henry David Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
Author
Autobiographer
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Understood
Silence
Literature
Words
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Intercourse
Humans
Misunderstanding
Begins
Tragedy

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.
Henry David Thoreau
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Men seem anxious to accomplish an orderly retreat through the centuries, earnestly rebuilding the works behind them, as they are battered down by the encroachments of time but while they loiter, they and their works both fall prey to the arch enemy.
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If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.
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Undoubtedly, in the most brilliant successes, the first rank is always sacrificed.
Henry David Thoreau
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We need the tonic of wildness...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 indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.
Henry David Thoreau
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I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight, New earths and skies and seas around, And in my day the sun doth pale his light.
Henry David Thoreau
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Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.
Henry David Thoreau
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Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?
Henry David Thoreau
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The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau
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That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.
Henry David Thoreau
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How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws.
Henry David Thoreau
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How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?
Henry David Thoreau
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The inhabitants of earth behold commonly but the dark and shadowy under side of heaven's pavement it is only when seen at a favorable angle in the horizon, morning or evening, that some faint streaks of the rich lining of the clouds are revealed.
Henry David Thoreau
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We often love to think now of the life of men on beaches,--at least in midsummer, when the weather is serene their sunny lives onthe sand, amid the beach-grass and bayberries, their companion a cow, their wealth a jag of driftwood or a few beach plums, and their music the surf and the peep of the beech-bird.
Henry David Thoreau
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A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.
Henry David Thoreau
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All great enterprises are self-supporting.
Henry David Thoreau
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There may be something petty in a refined taste it easily degenerates into effeminacy. It does not consider the broadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and curious or nice only.
Henry David Thoreau
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The most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively,as if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well learned.
Henry David Thoreau
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We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit.... But though it is full of good sense and humanity, it is not transcendent poetry.For picturesque description of persons it is, perhaps, without a parallel in English poetry yet it is essentially humorous, as the loftiest genius never is.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
Henry David Thoreau