Quote

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

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
Like
Tales
Realities
Shams
Entertainment
Tale
Soundest
Allow
Nights
Entertainments
Night
Fabulous
Arabian
Reality
Observe
Esteemed
Would
Delusion
Delusions
Men
Truths
Deluded
Life
Fairy
Steadily

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
The outward is only the outside of that which is within. Men are not concealed under habits, but are revealed by them they are their true clothes.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I am reminded by my journey how exceedingly new this country still is. You have only to travel for a few days into the interior and back parts even of many of the old States, to come to that very America which the Northmen, and Cabot, and Gosnold, and Smith, and Raleigh visited.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was exhausted.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
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
If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal - that is your success.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is the man determines what is said, not the words.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The young pines springing up in the corn-fields from year to year are to me a refreshing fact.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The oldest, wisest politician grows not more human so, but is merely a gray wharf rat at last.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Men go to a fire for entertainment. When I see how eagerly men will run to a fire, whether in warm or in cold weather, by day or by night, dragging an engine at their heels, I'm astonished to perceive how good a purpose the level of excitement is made to serve.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Henry David Thoreau