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This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.
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
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Complaint
Complaints
Complaining
Satisfaction
Life
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Truly, our greatest blessings are very cheap.
Henry David Thoreau
As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented.
Henry David Thoreau
There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone and to strike at the root of the matter at once,--for the root is faith,--I am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say.
Henry David Thoreau
It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment. If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps.
Henry David Thoreau
I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.
Henry David Thoreau
I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They have n't got life enough in them.... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began.
Henry David Thoreau
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
Henry David Thoreau
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
Henry David Thoreau
To the virtuous man, the universe is the only sanctum sanctorum, and the penetralia of the temple are the broad noon of his existence.
Henry David Thoreau
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined...
Henry David Thoreau
In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.
Henry David Thoreau
The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the heavens evenafter the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.
Henry David Thoreau
One may be drunk with love without being any nearer to finding his mate.
Henry David Thoreau
As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind.
Henry David Thoreau
The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man.
Henry David Thoreau
Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.
Henry David Thoreau
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion.
Henry David Thoreau
What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority. The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately were not men of sense nor of principle in a high moral sense they were not men at all.
Henry David Thoreau