Quote

Every man casts a shadow not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

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
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Men
Turns
Casts
Fall
Opposite
Spirit
Opposites
Body
Grief
Imperfectly
Every
Shadow
Mingled
Long
Sun
Bereavement
Way
Short
Noon
Never
Turn
Falls

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Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
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be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
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After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.
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There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.
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Could slavery suggest a more complete servility than some of these journals exhibit? Is there any dust which their conduct does not lick, and make fouler still with its slime?
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Nature is goodness crystallized.
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Even trees do not die without a groan.
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Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature -if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you -know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.
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As I love nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and winter, I love thee, my Friend.
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The question is not what you look at – but how you look & whether you see.
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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.
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The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell.
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As long as there is satire, the poet is, as it were, particeps criminis.
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The vessel, though her masts be firm,Beneath her copper bears a worm.
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At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.
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As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
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In literature it is only the wild that attracts us.
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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.
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