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The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
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
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Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Water
Stone
Copper
Nature
Gentle
Unfaithful
Time
Workers
Allowance
Stones
Touches
Eternity
Steel
Tools
Finest
Air
Leisure
Working
Liberal
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
How to extract its honey from the flower of the world. That is my everyday business. I am as busy as a bee about it. I ramble over fields on that errand and am never so happy as when I feel myself heavy with honey and wax. I am like a bee searching the livelong day for the sweets of nature.
Henry David Thoreau
We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defenses only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.
Henry David Thoreau
I am accustomed to think very long of going anywhere,--am slow to move. I hope to hear a response of the oracle first.
Henry David Thoreau
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
Henry David Thoreau
I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
Henry David Thoreau
We slander the hyena man is the fiercest and cruelest animal.
Henry David Thoreau
I have not read far in the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is not profitable reading. They do not always say what is true and they do not always mean what they say.
Henry David Thoreau
How many things are now at loose ends! Who knows which way the wind will blow tomorrow?
Henry David Thoreau
The object of love expands and grows before us to eternity, until it includes all that is lovely, and we become all that can love.
Henry David Thoreau
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.
Henry David Thoreau
The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it succeeds.
Henry David Thoreau
Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.
Henry David Thoreau
Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are NOT good?
Henry David Thoreau
I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
Henry David Thoreau
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.
Henry David Thoreau
I am reminded by my journey how exceedingly new this country still is. You have only to travel for a few days into the interior and back parts even of many of the old States, to come to that very America which the Northmen, and Cabot, and Gosnold, and Smith, and Raleigh visited.
Henry David Thoreau
In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident.
Henry David Thoreau
Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.
Henry David Thoreau
It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such.
Henry David Thoreau
