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Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
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
Life
Simplicity
Comforts
Comfort
Elevation
Positive
Hindrance
Mankind
Transcendental
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Materialistic
Literature
Indispensable
Dispensable
Simple
Greed
Hindrances
Many
Luxury
Luxuries
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.
Henry David Thoreau
We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.
Henry David Thoreau
Every poet has trembled on the verge of science.
Henry David Thoreau
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much.
Henry David Thoreau
It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.
Henry David Thoreau
I should say that the useful results of science had accumulated, but that there had been no accumulation of knowledge, strictly speaking, for posterity for knowledge is to be acquired only by a corresponding experience. How can we know what we are told merely? Each man can interpret another's experience only by his own.
Henry David Thoreau
We cannot well do without our sins they are the highway of our virtue.
Henry David Thoreau
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.
Henry David Thoreau
The improved means to the unimproved end.
Henry David Thoreau
Give me a Wildness whose glance no civilization can endure.
Henry David Thoreau
We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects.
Henry David Thoreau
Unlike the Concord, the Merrimack is not a dead but a living stream, though it has less life within its waters and on its banks. It has a swift current, and, in this part of its course, a clayey bottom, almost no weeds, and comparatively few fishes.
Henry David Thoreau
When the first light dawned on the earth, and the birds awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently seaward, and the nimble early rising wind rustled the oak leaves about our tent, all people, having reinforced their bodies and their souls with sleep, and cast aside doubt and fear, were invited to unattempted adventures.
Henry David Thoreau
I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal theireggs still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,--it is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens.
Henry David Thoreau
The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.
Henry David Thoreau
The highest condition of art is artlessness.
Henry David Thoreau
Let us not underrate the value of a fact it will one day flower into a truth.
Henry David Thoreau
Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.
Henry David Thoreau
There is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the mass of men hear and read. What is poetry in the common sense, but a hearing of such jingling names? I want nothing better than a good word. The name of a thing may easily be more than the thing itself to me.
Henry David Thoreau
