Quote

The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.

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
Men
Fireman
Commonly
Simplest
Heroic
Hero

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
For things to change, we must change.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and Shakespeare, for he would haveheld up his head in their company.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
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
Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. Butwe would not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described. They are truths in physics because they are true in ethics.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas, and grander conceptions of our duties in this world. It did expand us a little.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Bread may not always nourish us but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any unmixed and heroic joy.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Spring. March fans it, April christens it, and May puts on its jacket and trousers.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The savage lives simply through ignorance and idleness or laziness, but the philosopher lives simply through wisdom.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious era is ever soundingand resounding in the ears of men.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Where there is not discernment, the behavior even of the purest soul may in effect amount to coarseness.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The fishermen say that the thundering of the pond scares the fishes and prevents their biting.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth.
Henry David Thoreau