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I do not know at first what it is that harms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to be fairer and truer in to-morrow's memory.

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
Harm
Memory
Memories
Fairer
Firsts
Harms
First
Wont
Things
Truer
Men
Morrow
Appreciation

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He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past
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I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who have understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,-who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.
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He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts.
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I have a great deal of company in my house especially in the morning, when nobody calls.
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He who cuts down woods beyond a certain limit exterminates birds.
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Be not merely good. Be good for something.
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If you would be chaste, you must be temperate.
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Go confidently ... Live the life that you imagined.
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The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms. They give firmness to the sentence. Indeed, the mind never makes a great and successful effort, without a corresponding energy of the body.
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By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.
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Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.
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Why should not a poet's cat be winged as well as his horse?
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I am engaged to Concord and my own private pursuits by 10,000 ties, and it would be suicide to rend them.
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No doubt another may also think for me but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.
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Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen it cannot afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison but Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.
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Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever?
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If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
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Every poet has trembled on the verge of science.
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Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.
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I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
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