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The oldest, wisest politician grows not more human so, but is merely a gray wharf rat at last.
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
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Merely
Politician
Grows
Lasts
Last
Oldest
Government
Wisest
Human
Rats
Humans
Gray
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but a half dozen in any thousand.
Henry David Thoreau
The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids.
Henry David Thoreau
The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only to clear theatmosphere of smoke.
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
Any moral philosophy is exceedingly rare. This of Menu addresses our privacy more than most. It is a more private and familiar, and at the same time, a more public and universal word, than is spoken in parlor or pulpit nowadays.
Henry David Thoreau
In some countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far from being the Good Shepherd.
Henry David Thoreau
Who hears the fishes when they cry?
Henry David Thoreau
It has been so written, for the most part, that the times it describes are with remarkable propriety called dark ages. They are dark, as one has observed, because we are so in the dark about them.
Henry David Thoreau
Methinks my own soul must be a bright invisible green.
Henry David Thoreau
Most think that they are above being supported by the town but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which would be more disreputable.
Henry David Thoreau
The monster is never just there where we think he is. What is truly monstrous is our cowardice and sloth.
Henry David Thoreau
You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.
Henry David Thoreau
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God.
Henry David Thoreau
Can there be any greater reproach than an idle learning? Learn to split wood, at least.
Henry David Thoreau
Some do not walk at all others walk in the highways a few walk across lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead.
Henry David Thoreau
The most stupendous scenery ceases to be sublime when it becomes distinct, or in other words limited, and the imagination is no longer encouraged to exaggerate it. The actual height and breadth of a mountain or a waterfall are always ridiculously small they are the imagined only that content us.
Henry David Thoreau
When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?
Henry David Thoreau
The books for young people say a great deal about the selection of Friends it is because they really have nothing to say about Friends. They mean associates and confidants merely.
Henry David Thoreau
I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings.
Henry David Thoreau
All the events which make the annals of the nations are but the shadows of our private experiences.
Henry David Thoreau
