Quote

When the first light dawned on the earth, and the birds awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently seaward, and the nimble early rising wind rustled the oak leaves about our tent, all people, having reinforced their bodies and their souls with sleep, and cast aside doubt and fear, were invited to unattempted adventures.

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
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Nature
Adventure
Cast
Tent
Light
Bird
Rising
Tents
Rustled
Earth
Early
Casts
Oaks
Rippling
Body
Wind
Bodies
Adventures
Awoke
Soul
Doubt
Leaves
Invited
Dawned
Firsts
Sleep
Souls
Aside
Reinforced
First
Heard
Rivers
Birds
Nimble
People
Fear
Brave
River
Confidently

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Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are NOT good?
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The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and expect the time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as freely.
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A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of nature by being buried in it.
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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.
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Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
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I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect...always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished.
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In wildness is the preservation of the world.
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Nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind than medicine. Quackery is a thing universal, and universally successful. In this case it becomes literally true that no imposition is too great for the credulity of men.
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Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent.
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Dissent without action is consent.
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Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.
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As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.
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This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work.
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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.
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Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.
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The poet is he who can write some pure mythology today without the aid of posterity.
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The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.
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It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.
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As far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors. It is to them that we owe this gift. It is not in vain that the squirrels live in or about every forest tree, or hollow log, and every wall and heap of stones.
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