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Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.
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
Rather
Less
Look
Looks
Carlyle
Observe
Observation
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Do not engage to find things as you think they are.
Henry David Thoreau
Let your walks now be a little more adventurous.
Henry David Thoreau
For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse and imperfect use Indiansand hunters make of nature! No wonder that their race is so soon exterminated.
Henry David Thoreau
I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.
Henry David Thoreau
Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic.
Henry David Thoreau
Surely the writer is to address a world of laborers, and such therefore must be his own discipline.
Henry David Thoreau
This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?
Henry David Thoreau
Real power is measured by how much you can let things be.
Henry David Thoreau
History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning ofthings, which natural history might with reason assume to do but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,--when did burdock and plantain sprout first?
Henry David Thoreau
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
Henry David Thoreau
One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors for to dwell long upon them is to add to the offense, and repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by somewhat better, and which is as free and original as if they had not been.
Henry David Thoreau
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
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
Henry David Thoreau
That grand old poem called Winter
Henry David Thoreau
The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls, and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. Those who are taken into it live like pensioners in their Retreat or Sailors' Snug Harbor, where you may see a row of religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather.
Henry David Thoreau
I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.
Henry David Thoreau
The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor
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
Simplicity is the peak of civilization.
Henry David Thoreau
I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. The former are so much the freer.
Henry David Thoreau