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The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
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
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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Naturalist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Assume
Obligation
Assuming
Right
Time
Think
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Disobedience
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
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
I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience, and was reminded that ourlife should be lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a flower.
Henry David Thoreau
The most stupendous scenery ceases to be sublime when it becomes distinct, or in other words limited, and the imagination is no longer encouraged to exaggerate it. The actual height and breadth of a mountain or a waterfall are always ridiculously small they are the imagined only that content us.
Henry David Thoreau
What do the botanists know? Our lives should go between the lichen and the bark. The eye may see for the hand, but not for the mind. We are still being born, and have as yet but a dim vision of sea and land, sun, moon, and stars, and shall not see clearly till after nine days at least.
Henry David Thoreau
We are ashamed of our fear for we know that a righteous man would not suspect danger nor incur any. Wherever a man feels fear, there is an avenger.
Henry David Thoreau
There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.
Henry David Thoreau
As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiencesof the life that is in nature are in time veritably future, or rather outside of time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never die.
Henry David Thoreau
From my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason for a savage's preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit.
Henry David Thoreau
The lover wants no partiality. He says, Be so kind as to be just.
Henry David Thoreau
What can be expressed in words can be expressed in life.
Henry David Thoreau
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.
Henry David Thoreau
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.
Henry David Thoreau
A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.
Henry David Thoreau
The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.
Henry David Thoreau
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Lose the world, get lost in it, and find your soul.
Henry David Thoreau
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.
Henry David Thoreau
Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. ... Shall we always study to obtain more, and not sometimes be content with less?
Henry David Thoreau
The young pines springing up in the corn-fields from year to year are to me a refreshing fact.
Henry David Thoreau
