Quote

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

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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
Light
Enlightenment
Star
Sun
Darkness
Eyes
Dawns
Stars
Puts
Morning
Dawn
Eye
Awake

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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Even the best things are not equal to their fame.
Henry David Thoreau
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The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only to clear theatmosphere of smoke.
Henry David Thoreau
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I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.
Henry David Thoreau
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Be resolutely and faithfully what you are be humbly what you aspire to be.
Henry David Thoreau
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Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
Henry David Thoreau
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Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is but too easy to establish another durable and harmonious routine. Immediately all parts of nature consent to it. Only make something to take the place of something, and men will behave as if it was the very thing they wanted.
Henry David Thoreau
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The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.
Henry David Thoreau
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The intellect of most men is barren. They neither fertilize or are fertilized. It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination...without nature-awakened imagination most persons do not really live in the world, they merely pass through it as they live dull lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is impossible to give a soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.
Henry David Thoreau
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I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way.
Henry David Thoreau
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If I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler.
Henry David Thoreau
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Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever?
Henry David Thoreau
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The perception of beauty is a moral test.
Henry David Thoreau
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In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.
Henry David Thoreau
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The voice of nature is always encouraging.
Henry David Thoreau
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All endeavour calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.
Henry David Thoreau
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Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher way of the two.
Henry David Thoreau
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The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.
Henry David Thoreau
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For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects. I was so absorbed in him as to be surprised whenever I detected the routine of the natural world surviving still, or met persons going about their affairs indifferent.
Henry David Thoreau