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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Body
Grief
Imperfectly
Every
Shadow
Mingled
Long
Sun
Bereavement
Way
Short
Noon
Never
Turn
Falls
Men
Turns
Casts
Fall
Opposite
Spirit
Opposites

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
For if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
There is an orientalism in the most restless pioneer, and the farthest west is but the farthest east.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks of human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not vomit up.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Your religion is where your love is.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might be written today for the next ten years with sufficientaccuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to interest, still less alarm us but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!
Henry David Thoreau
Image
A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls. And then the sun goes down, and long the afterglow gives light.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It seems as if the more youthful and impressible streams can hardly resist the numerous invitations and temptations to leave theirnative beds and run down their neighbors' channels.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Friends will be much apart. They will respect more each other's privacy than their communion.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East -- to know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them -- who were above such trifling.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.
Henry David Thoreau