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The prosaic man sees things badly, or with the bodily sense but the poet sees them clad in beauty, with the spiritual sense.

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
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Spiritual
Prosaic
Sense
Clad
Things
Bodily
Men
Badly
Sees
Gratitude
Poet
Beauty

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.
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The object of love expands and grows before us to eternity, until it includes all that is lovely, and we become all that can love.
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As a preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which that is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a skillful economist at once.
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Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.
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Color, which is the poet's wealth, is so expensive that most take to mere outline sketches and become men of science.
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As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public.
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All men are really most attracted by the beauty of plain speech, and they even write in a florid style in imitation of this. Theyprefer to be misunderstood rather than to come short of its exuberance.
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Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not traveling.
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Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.
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find your eternity in each moment
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What would human life be without forests, those natural cities?
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As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow indoor occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as theevening of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just before sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an hour.
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Where there is a brave man, in the thickest of the fight, there is the post of honor.
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Man makes very much such a nest for his domestic animals, of withered grass and fodder, as the squirrels and many other wild creatures do for themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
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I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
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In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.
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We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.
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If you chance to live and move and have your being in that thin stratum in which the events that make the news transpire,--thinnerthan the paper on which it is printed,--then these things will fill the world for you but if you soar above or dive below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them.
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Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid.
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There is such a thing as caste, even in the West but it is comparatively faint it is conservatism here. It says, forsake not your calling, outrage no institution, use no violence, rend no bonds the State is thy parent. Its virtue or manhood is wholly filial.
Henry David Thoreau