Quote

If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.

Henry David Thoreau

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Justice
Spider
Would
Spiders
Like
Confined
World
Corner
Corners
Large
Thoughts
Days
Garret

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
Why will we be imposed on by antiquity?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Unless we do more than simply learn the trade of our time, we are but apprentices, and not yet masters of the art of life.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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
Image
All these sounds, the crowing of cocks, the baying of dogs, and the hum of insects at noon, are the evidence of nature's health orsound state.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
There is not so good an understanding between any two, but the exposure by the one of a serious fault in the other will produce a misunderstanding in proportion to its heinousness.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nothing can shock a brave man but dullness.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
All endeavour calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Was awakened in the night to a strain of music dying away, - passing travellers singing. My being was so expanded and infinitely and divinely related for a brief season that I saw how unexhausted, how almost wholly unimproved, was man's capacity for a divine life. When I remembered what a narrow and finite life I should anon awake to!
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The greater number of men are merely corporals.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man--not to make any invidious comparison--is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.... Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of thewords by which they are expressed, or to attend to their literal instead of their metaphorical sense. They are already supernatural philosophy.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am constantly doing by being what I am.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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
Image
What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,--for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
Henry David Thoreau