Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
Henry David Thoreau
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Literature
Good
Foundations
World
Laid
Foundation
Stand
Doubt
Least
Seen
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
There is a chasm between knowledge and ignorance which the arches of science can never span.
Henry David Thoreau
Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.
Henry David Thoreau
The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the toughest son ofearth and of Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance his fainting companions will recognize the God in him. It is the worshipers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.
Henry David Thoreau
Of what significance are the things you can forget.
Henry David Thoreau
The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.
Henry David Thoreau
As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
Why the jailer does not leave open his prison doors,--why the judge does not dismiss his case,--why the preacher does not dismisshis congregation! It is because they do not obey the hint God gives them, nor accept the pardon which he freely offers to all.
Henry David Thoreau
We love to hear some men speak, though we hear not what they say the very air they breathe is rich and perfumed, and the sound of their voices falls on the ear like the rustling of leaves or the crackling of the fire. They stand many deep.
Henry David Thoreau
There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.
Henry David Thoreau
In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment to toe that line.
Henry David Thoreau
We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects.
Henry David Thoreau
It is not worth while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar.
Henry David Thoreau
On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and Shakespeare, for he would haveheld up his head in their company.
Henry David Thoreau
Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them - that it was a vain endeavor?
Henry David Thoreau
As all curves have reference to their centres or foci, so all beauty of character has reference to the soul, and is a graceful gesture of recognition or waving of the body toward it.
Henry David Thoreau
A fortified town is like a man cased in the heavy armor of antiquity, with a horse-load of broadswords and small arms slung to him, endeavoring to go about his business.
Henry David Thoreau
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God.
Henry David Thoreau
When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?
Henry David Thoreau
Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved bythem. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows.
Henry David Thoreau