Quote

I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it.

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
Cease
Object
Begin
Objects
Vision
Seeing
Understand
Nature
Awe

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,--the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,--at least apparently,--but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Our thoughts are epochs in our lives all else is but as a journal of the winds that blow while we are here.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
How meanly and grossly do we deal with nature!
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The tree of Knowledge is a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nature is fair in proportion as the youth is pure. The heavens and the earth are one flower the earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtlest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The books for young people say a great deal about the selection of Friends it is because they really have nothing to say about Friends. They mean associates and confidants merely.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The pleasures of the intellect are permanent, the pleasures of the heart are transitory.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The virtue of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before does not begin to be superhuman.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If you indulge in long periods, you must be sure to have a snapper at the end.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man,--all whose bones can be bent! whose heaven-born virtues are but good manners!
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen it cannot afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison but Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The country is an archipelago of lakes,--the lake-country of New England.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot think of them without elevation!
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The past is only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on which our idea of heroism is painted, and so, in one sense, the dim prospectus of our future field.
Henry David Thoreau