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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

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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
Author
Autobiographer
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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Hardship
Life
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Experience
Maintain
Inspirational
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Earth
Short
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Still
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Wisely

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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The only sin in the world is ignorance.
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The squeaking of the pump sounds as necessary as the music of the spheres.
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What is called common sense is excellent in its department, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity in the army and navy,--for there must be subordination,--but uncommon sense, that sense which is common only to the wisest, is as much more excellent as it is more rare.
Henry David Thoreau
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A man may acquire a taste for wine or brandy, and so lose his love for water, but should we not pity him.
Henry David Thoreau
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We cannot well do without our sins they are the highway of our virtue.
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Love is the profoundest of secrets. Divulged, even to the beloved, it is no longer Love. As if it were merely I that loved you. When love ceases, then it is divulged.
Henry David Thoreau
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By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.
Henry David Thoreau
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All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.
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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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The theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny accomplishment. It is with a certain coldness and languor that we loiter about the actual and so-called practical.
Henry David Thoreau
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While some men believe in the infinite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.
Henry David Thoreau
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I once found a kernel of corn in the middle of a deep wood by Walden, tucked in behind a lichen on a pine, about as high as my head, either by a crow or a squirrel. It was a mile at least from any corn-field.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have not earned what I have already enjoyed.
Henry David Thoreau
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We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.
Henry David Thoreau
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If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the greatest evil that can be inflicted on him, he would find suddenly that there was no such evil to bear his brave back would go a-begging.
Henry David Thoreau
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For if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men?
Henry David Thoreau
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Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls. And then the sun goes down, and long the afterglow gives light.
Henry David Thoreau
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Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
Henry David Thoreau
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If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?
Henry David Thoreau
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In their daily life, all are braver than they know.
Henry David Thoreau