Quote

Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.

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
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Winter
Phenomena
Adorns
King
Described
Tresses
Lovers
Accustomed
Boisterous
Kings
Tyrants
Suggestive
Summer
Tenderness
Inexpressible
Hear
Rude
Delicacy
Many
Fragile
Tyrant
Lover
Gentleness

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Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
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To regret deeply is to live afresh.
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When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.
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Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually thus fair and distinct? All our lives want a suitable background. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in a desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon.
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It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
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Live free, child of the mist,- and with respect to knowledge we are allchildren of the mist.
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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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As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done.
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Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
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The body can feed the body only.
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The sacredness, if there is any, is all in yourself and not in the place.
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We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.
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For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?
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It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.
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I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
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There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.
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