Quote

I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.

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
Must
Thorns
Never
Alter
Would
Gather
Life
Attempt
Flowers
Flower
Attitude
Nothing
Altering

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
All men recognize the right of revolution that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Even in civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the devil's angels.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile,... the Rocky Mountains, the Himmaleh, and Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal importance in the annals of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
As far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors. It is to them that we owe this gift. It is not in vain that the squirrels live in or about every forest tree, or hollow log, and every wall and heap of stones.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Every gazette brings accounts of the untutored freaks of the wind,--shipwrecks and hurricanes which the mariner and planter acceptas special or general providences but they touch our consciences, they remind us of our sins. Another deluge would disgrace mankind.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Truly, our greatest blessings are very cheap.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
A sufficiently great and generous trust could never be abused.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Wealth can't buy heath, but heath can buy wealth.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much patience of this kind.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely blossom and soI am content to live.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We have reason to be grateful for celestial phenomena, for they chiefly answer to the ideal in man.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
After all, I believe it is the style of thought entirely, and the style of expression, which makes the difference in books.
Henry David Thoreau