Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Men are probably nearer the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science.
Henry David Thoreau
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Gambling
Essential
Essentials
Probably
Science
Truth
Men
Nearer
Superstitions
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial.
Henry David Thoreau
Compliments and flattery oftenest excite my contempt by the pretension they imply for who is he that assumes to flatter me? To compliment often implies an assumption of superiority in the complimenter. It is, in fact, a subtle detraction.
Henry David Thoreau
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps.
Henry David Thoreau
Those who work much do not work hard.
Henry David Thoreau
I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.
Henry David Thoreau
Every poet has trembled on the verge of science.
Henry David Thoreau
Dissent without action is consent.
Henry David Thoreau
I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.
Henry David Thoreau
I am amused to see from my window here how busily a man has divided and staked off his domain. God must smile at his puny fences running hither and thither everywhere over the land.
Henry David Thoreau
To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.
Henry David Thoreau
It is a relief to read some true book, wherein all are equally dead,--equally alive. I think the best parts of Shakespeare would only be enhanced by the most thrilling and affecting events. I have found it so. And so much the more, as they are not intended for consolation.
Henry David Thoreau
A Friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us.
Henry David Thoreau
Let a man take time enough for the most trivial deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. The buds swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion,--as if the short spring days were an eternity.
Henry David Thoreau
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?
Henry David Thoreau
That grand old poem called Winter
Henry David Thoreau
You cannot hear music and noise at the same time.
Henry David Thoreau
When the chopper would praise a pine, he will commonly tell you that the one he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen stood on its stump as if that were what the pine had grown for, to become the footstool of oxen.
Henry David Thoreau
Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin!
Henry David Thoreau
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Henry David Thoreau
Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons.
Henry David Thoreau
