Quote

My desire for knowledge is intermittent but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.

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
Knowledge
Atmosphere
Communes
Universe
Bear
Perennial
Desire
Bears
Nectar
Spirit
Constant
Intoxicated
Divine
Heights
Atmospheres
Feet
Yearning
Intermittent
Head
Height
Fumes
Call
Unknown
Commune

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
As long as there is satire, the poet is, as it were, particeps criminis.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected too faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Life is grand, and so are its environments of Past and Future. Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man's destiny were not equally so?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
A sufficiently great and generous trust could never be abused.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
In Adam's fall We sinned all. In the new Adam's rise, We shall all reach the skies.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an inhabitant of the land and all its products have a certain fabulous quality, as if they belonged to another planet.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
When we come down into the distant village, visible from the mountain-top, the nobler inhabitants with whom we peopled it have departed, and left only vermin in its desolate streets. It is the imagination of poets which puts those brave speeches into the mouths of their heroes.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
However mean your life is, meet it and live it do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We cannot well do without our sins they are the highway of our virtue.
Henry David Thoreau