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Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.
Henry David Thoreau
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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Some simple dishes recommend themselves to our imaginations as well as palates.
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The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly.
Henry David Thoreau
All fables, indeed, have their morals but the innocent enjoy the story.
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In the mythus a superhuman intelligence uses the unconscious thoughts and dreams of men as its hieroglyphics to address men unborn.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.
Henry David Thoreau
There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods, of more importance than all the rest, which the historian can never know.
Henry David Thoreau
Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man.
Henry David Thoreau
Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.
Henry David Thoreau
Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it.
Henry David Thoreau
Most think that they are above being supported by the town but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which would be more disreputable.
Henry David Thoreau
Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor.
Henry David Thoreau
The art of life, of a poet's life, is, not having anything to do, to do something.
Henry David Thoreau
Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.
Henry David Thoreau
The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.
Henry David Thoreau
Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting.... We have not got half-way to dawn yet.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature refuses to sympathize with our sorrow. She seems not to have provided for, but by a thousand contrivances against it.
Henry David Thoreau
Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?
Henry David Thoreau
After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.
Henry David Thoreau
The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.
Henry David Thoreau
One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.
Henry David Thoreau
