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The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.
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
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Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Rarest
Epitaph
Cynical
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Truth
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
When you knock, ask to see God — none of the servants.
Henry David Thoreau
Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue caught from a vaster receding thought.
Henry David Thoreau
Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as if it were redeemed. When the desire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly elevated, and so far better already.
Henry David Thoreau
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
Henry David Thoreau
We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.
Henry David Thoreau
Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.
Henry David Thoreau
As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life.
Henry David Thoreau
So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their good breeding respects only secondary objects.
Henry David Thoreau
Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth.
Henry David Thoreau
As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public.
Henry David Thoreau
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
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable.
Henry David Thoreau
The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.
Henry David Thoreau
These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this man's acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news that America has ever heard.... How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!
Henry David Thoreau
Spring-an experience in immortality.
Henry David Thoreau
O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
Henry David Thoreau
It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.
Henry David Thoreau
What stuff is the man made of who is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and sublimest truth?
Henry David Thoreau
Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, seewhat isbefore you, and walkon intofuturity.
Henry David Thoreau
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
Henry David Thoreau
