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Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.
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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Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Defeat
Fail
Despair
Succeed
Failing
Born
Postponement
Men
Procrastination
Cowardice
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.
Henry David Thoreau
Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.
Henry David Thoreau
He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.
Henry David Thoreau
I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They have n't got life enough in them.... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began.
Henry David Thoreau
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable.
Henry David Thoreau
The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body, in a sheltered place but man, having discovered fire, boxes up someair in a spacious apartment, and warms that.... Thus he goes a step or two beyond instinct, and saves a little time for the fine arts.
Henry David Thoreau
We seem to think that the earth must go through the ordeal of sheep-pasturage before it is habitable by man.
Henry David Thoreau
It is a great art to saunter !
Henry David Thoreau
All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.
Henry David Thoreau
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Henry David Thoreau
As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however, ancient, can be trusted without proof. ... Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
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 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.
Henry David Thoreau
Many have believed that Walden reached quite through to the other side of the globe.
Henry David Thoreau
At least let us have healthy books.
Henry David Thoreau
Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.
Henry David Thoreau
When we come down into the distant village, visible from the mountain-top, the nobler inhabitants with whom we peopled it have departed, and left only vermin in its desolate streets. It is the imagination of poets which puts those brave speeches into the mouths of their heroes.
Henry David Thoreau
A man of fine perceptions is more truly feminine than a merely sentimental woman.
Henry David Thoreau
A man receives only what he is ready to receive... The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest of what he has observed, he does not observe.
Henry David Thoreau
