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I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune.

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
Incessant
Silently
Smiled
Fortune
Good

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No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of spring.
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It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses and the brute degenerates in man's society.
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In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is.
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As a preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which that is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a skillful economist at once.
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I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.
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Morning brings back the heroic ages.
Henry David Thoreau
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Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
Henry David Thoreau
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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
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Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as if they knew its qualities very well, and despised them as owls might talk of sunshine,--none of your sunshine!--but this word commonly means merely something which they do not understand,--which they are abed and asleep to, however much it may be worth their while to be up and awake to it.
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I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them.
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I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not truly lived.
Henry David Thoreau
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The husbandman is always a better Greek than the scholar is prepared to appreciate, and the old custom still survives, while antiquarians and scholars grow gray in commemorating it.
Henry David Thoreau
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Of what significance are the things you can forget.
Henry David Thoreau
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With all your science can you tell me how it is, and when it is, that light comes into the soul?
Henry David Thoreau
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While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the country a hundred miles inland, which was a terra incognitato them,... Champlain, the first Governor of Canada,... had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before a Pilgrim had heard of New England.
Henry David Thoreau
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The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls, and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. Those who are taken into it live like pensioners in their Retreat or Sailors' Snug Harbor, where you may see a row of religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather.
Henry David Thoreau
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The front aspect of great thoughts can only be enjoyed by those who stand on the side whence they arrive.
Henry David Thoreau
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The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.
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I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extravagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limit of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced.
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I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud-puddle he comes out honor-bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much leisure.
Henry David Thoreau