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Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.
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
Thinking
Law
Discern
Life
Experience
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True
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Live
Clearly
Play
Fail
Children
Relation
Men
Failure
Think
Failing
Worthily
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
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
Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.
Henry David Thoreau
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
Henry David Thoreau
When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, [I] submit myself to my instinct to decide for me.
Henry David Thoreau
A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!
Henry David Thoreau
I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated fromlong housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn.
Henry David Thoreau
Go confidently ... Live the life that you imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
In some pictures of Provincetown the persons of the inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be buried in the sand.
Henry David Thoreau
One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living.
Henry David Thoreau
You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blunderingclod-hopper that I am. Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an infinite brag and exaggeration. Not that I do not stand on all that I have written,--but what am I to the truth I feebly utter?
Henry David Thoreau
I wished only to be set down in Canada, and take one honest walk there as I might in Concord woods of an afternoon.
Henry David Thoreau
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Henry David Thoreau
To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.
Henry David Thoreau
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?
Henry David Thoreau
Every man will be a poet if he can otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.
Henry David Thoreau
When any real progress is made, we unlearned and learn anew what we thought we knew before.
Henry David Thoreau
There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.
Henry David Thoreau
A hero's love is as delicate as a maiden's.
Henry David Thoreau
This fond reiteration of the oldest expressions of truth by the latest posterity, content with slightly and religiously retouchingthe old material, is the most impressive proof of a common humanity.
Henry David Thoreau
In some countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far from being the Good Shepherd.
Henry David Thoreau
