Quote

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.

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
Still
Disgusting
Find
Terrified
Dusted
Mind
Required
Limestone
Daily
Disgust
Window
Threw
Pieces
Desk
Three
Desks
Stills
Furniture

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
We should seek to be fellow students with the pupil, and should learn of, as well as with him, if we would be most helpful to him.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it (life), whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever.'
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If you would be chaste, you must be temperate.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Waves of a serene life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Say, Not so, and you will out circle the philosophers.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Rise free from care before the dawn and seek adventure. Let the noon find you by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.
Henry David Thoreau