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To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.
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
Men
Exaggeration
Small
Greater
Every
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.
Henry David Thoreau
I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came?--till you and I came over to him?
Henry David Thoreau
I did not know that mankind was suffering for want of gold.
Henry David Thoreau
Poverty ... It is life near the bone, where it is sweetest.
Henry David Thoreau
A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can appreciate.
Henry David Thoreau
I suppose that the great questions of Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge Absolute, which used to be discussed at Concord, are still unsettled.
Henry David Thoreau
You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.
Henry David Thoreau
Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics think that they know how to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric but they are egregiously mistaken. The art of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them.
Henry David Thoreau
The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.
Henry David Thoreau
But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization to you: Home is home, be it never so homely.
Henry David Thoreau
The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the heavens evenafter the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.
Henry David Thoreau
I am accustomed to think very long of going anywhere,--am slow to move. I hope to hear a response of the oracle first.
Henry David Thoreau
I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them.
Henry David Thoreau
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. [Like they say, 'Every cloud has a silver lining'...so if you are patient, expect, anticipate, look and work for some good to come from the cloud, you will be rewarded eventually!]
Henry David Thoreau
Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.
Henry David Thoreau
The virtues of a superior man are like the wind the virtues of a common man are like the grass the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.
Henry David Thoreau
This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge... It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature.
Henry David Thoreau
The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army--is that power thatestablishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.
Henry David Thoreau
I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.
Henry David Thoreau
Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.
Henry David Thoreau
