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A Friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us.

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
Pay
Friend
Virtue
Incessantly
Pays
Compliment
Virtues
Expecting
Appreciate

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must bestripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living laid for a foundation.
Henry David Thoreau
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Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.
Henry David Thoreau
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As I love nature, as I love singing birds...I love thee, my friend.
Henry David Thoreau
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A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can appreciate.
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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Today...the bluebirds, old and young, have revisited their box, as if they would fain repeat the summer without intervention of winter, if Nature would let them.
Henry David Thoreau
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We are superior to the joy we experience.
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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In the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages but in vain-I find no sea room-but in great souls I sail before the wind without a watch, and never reach the shore.
Henry David Thoreau
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If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him . . he will be surrounded by grandeur.
Henry David Thoreau
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We often love to think now of the life of men on beaches,--at least in midsummer, when the weather is serene their sunny lives onthe sand, amid the beach-grass and bayberries, their companion a cow, their wealth a jag of driftwood or a few beach plums, and their music the surf and the peep of the beech-bird.
Henry David Thoreau
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The most interesting thing which I heard of, in this township of Hull, was an unfailing spring, whose locality was pointed out tome on the side of a distant hill, as I was panting along the shore, though I did not visit it. Perhaps, if I should go through Rome, it would be some spring on the Capitoline Hill I should remember the longest.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is the bog in our brains and bowels, the primitive vigor of Nature in us, that inspires that dream. I shall never find in the wilds of Labrador a greater wildness than in some recess of Concord.
Henry David Thoreau
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I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low-flying bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my head, along the shore. So, turning the other side of my half-clad body to the fire, I sought slumber again.
Henry David Thoreau
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A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.
Henry David Thoreau
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Spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who have understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,-who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.
Henry David Thoreau
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Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
Henry David Thoreau
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Many old people receive pensions for no other reason, it seems to me, but as a compensation for having lived a long time ago.
Henry David Thoreau
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All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
Henry David Thoreau