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We do not enjoy poetry unless we know it to be poetry.
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
Transcendentalism
Poetry
Unless
Enjoy
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.
Henry David Thoreau
A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority it is not even a minority then but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.
Henry David Thoreau
I love man-kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors. Such foundation too have our lectures and our sermons, commonly.
Henry David Thoreau
As if there were safety in stupidity alone
Henry David Thoreau
Every man is entitled to come to Cattle-Show, even a transcendentalist and for my part I am more interested in the men than in the cattle.
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
Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye.
Henry David Thoreau
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
Henry David Thoreau
When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.
Henry David Thoreau
Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.
Henry David Thoreau
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David Thoreau
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety.
Henry David Thoreau
If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.
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
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
As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there some, prodigies and portents some rarely look up at all their heads, like the brutes,' are directed toward Earth. Some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable. The world runs to see the panorama, when there is a panorama in the sky which few go to see.
Henry David Thoreau
There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.
Henry David Thoreau
However much we admire the orator's occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or abovethe fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds.
Henry David Thoreau
There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.
Henry David Thoreau
We are older by faith than by experience.
Henry David Thoreau