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The savage lives simply through ignorance and idleness or laziness, but the philosopher lives simply through wisdom.

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
Philosopher
Simplicity
Ignorance
Simply
Wisdom
Savage
Lives
Idleness
Savages
Laziness

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
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I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.
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Comparatively, we can excuse any offense against the heart, but not against the imagination. The imagination knows--nothing escapes its glance from out its eyry--and it controls the breast.
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Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist. With the least inclination to be well, we should not be sick.
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Wealth can't buy heath, but heath can buy wealth.
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When any real progress is made, we unlearned and learn anew what we thought we knew before.
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We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.
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I know of no redeeming qualities in myself but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I fall back on to this ground.
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I thrive best on solitude. If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it.
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I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.
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How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?
Henry David Thoreau
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Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye.
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For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect.
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There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.
Henry David Thoreau
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Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
Henry David Thoreau
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The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,--the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,--at least apparently,--but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.
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Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.
Henry David Thoreau
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Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.
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Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others. Yet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women. This certainly suggests what change is to be made.
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I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent.
Henry David Thoreau