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There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.
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
Writing
Biographies
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Biography
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
The theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny accomplishment. It is with a certain coldness and languor that we loiter about the actual and so-called practical.
Henry David Thoreau
If it is the result of a pure love, there can be nothing sensual in marriage. Chastity is something positive, not negative. It isthe virtue of the married especially. All lusts or base pleasures must give place to loftier delights. They who meet as superior beings cannot perform the deeds of inferior ones.
Henry David Thoreau
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.
Henry David Thoreau
It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair's breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance ... To perceive freshly, with fresh senses is to be inspired.
Henry David Thoreau
On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and Shakespeare, for he would haveheld up his head in their company.
Henry David Thoreau
If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.
Henry David Thoreau
I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
Henry David Thoreau
You don't know your testament when you see it.
Henry David Thoreau
I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.
Henry David Thoreau
Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse.
Henry David Thoreau
Men reverence one another, not yet God.
Henry David Thoreau
If we dealt only with the false and dishonest, we should at last forget how to speak truth.
Henry David Thoreau
The wisest man preaches no doctrines he has no scheme he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear sky.
Henry David Thoreau
I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface ofthings. We think that that is which appears to be.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature has left nothing to the mercy of man.
Henry David Thoreau
I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government
Henry David Thoreau
Many old people receive pensions for no other reason, it seems to me, but as a compensation for having lived a long time ago.
Henry David Thoreau
The ears were made, not for such trivial uses as men are wont to suppose, but to hear celestial sounds.
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
Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.
Henry David Thoreau
