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You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.

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
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
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Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Still
Exhibits
May
Spot
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Enough
Attractive
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Woods
Long
Turns
Nature
Exhibit
Stills
Inhabitants

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes.
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A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!
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I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows.
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Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
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I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention. Man is but the place where I stand, and the prospect hence is infinite.
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For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman... but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.
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I have seen more men than usual, lately and, well as I was acquainted with one, I am surprised to find what vulgar fellows they are.
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So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their good breeding respects only secondary objects.
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As for health, consider yourself well.
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My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought - with these I deal.
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I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.
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The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as freely.
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Not secondary to the sun, she gives us his blaze again, Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day... In Heaven queen she is among the spheres She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure.
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Be not merely good. Be good for something.
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There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them - as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon.
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A fact may blossom into a truth.
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Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.
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Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.
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Where there is a lull in truth an institution springs up.
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Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
Henry David Thoreau