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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
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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Instead of water we got here a draught of beer, a lumberer's drink, which would acclimate and naturalize a man at once,-which would make him see green, and, if he slept, dream that he heard the wind sough among the pines.
Henry David Thoreau
Yet we must try the harder, the less the prospect of success.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature refuses to sympathize with our sorrow. She seems not to have provided for, but by a thousand contrivances against it.
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
What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!
Henry David Thoreau
I have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt children, and at length gave them no peace. They did not know when to swallow their cud, and their lives of course yielded no milk.
Henry David Thoreau
I repeat that in this sense the most splendid court in Christendom is provincial, having authority to consult about Transalpine interests only, and not the affairs of Rome. A prætor or proconsul would suffice to settle the questions which absorb the attention of the English Parliament and the American Congress.
Henry David Thoreau
How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
Henry David Thoreau
The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence.
Henry David Thoreau
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
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
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.
Henry David Thoreau
We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.
Henry David Thoreau
There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.
Henry David Thoreau
He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behaviour as well as application.
Henry David Thoreau
Simplicity is the law of Nature for man as well as for flowers. When the tapestry (corolla) of the nuptial bed (calyx) is excessive, luxuriant, it is unproductive. The fertile flowers are single, not double.
Henry David Thoreau
Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone.
Henry David Thoreau
Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.
Henry David Thoreau
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
All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms all purity is one. It is the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, or sleep sensually. They are but one appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist he is. The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity.
Henry David Thoreau