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Let a man take time enough for the most trivial deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. The buds swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion,--as if the short spring days were an eternity.
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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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Though
Moderation
Paring
Without
Nails
Imperceptibly
Take
Confusion
Buds
Enough
Deeds
Swell
Men
Eternity
Bud
Time
Spring
Trivial
Short
Hurry
Days
Deed
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
They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.
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
Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.
Henry David Thoreau
Unless the human race perspire more than I do, there is no occasion to live by the sweat of their brow. If men cannot get on without money (the smallest amount will suffice), the truest method of earning it is by working as a laborer at one dollar per day. You are least dependent so I speak as an expert, having used several kinds of labor.
Henry David Thoreau
One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors for to dwell long upon them is to add to the offense, and repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by somewhat better, and which is as free and original as if they had not been.
Henry David Thoreau
How to extract its honey from the flower of the world. That is my everyday business. I am as busy as a bee about it. I ramble over fields on that errand and am never so happy as when I feel myself heavy with honey and wax. I am like a bee searching the livelong day for the sweets of nature.
Henry David Thoreau
Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.
Henry David Thoreau
Let us not play at kittly-benders. There is a solid bottom everywhere.
Henry David Thoreau
The authority of government . . . can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.
Henry David Thoreau
I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.
Henry David Thoreau
It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart it being much more sensitive.
Henry David Thoreau
If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?
Henry David Thoreau
But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.
Henry David Thoreau
It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker.
Henry David Thoreau
All that are printed and bound are not books they do not necessarily belong to letters, but are oftener to be ranked with the other luxuries and appendages of civilized life. Base wares are palmed off under a thousand disguises.
Henry David Thoreau
The golden mean in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system and that about which all revolve, and though to a distant and plodding planet it be an uttermost extreme, yet one day, when that planet's year is completed, it will be found to be central.
Henry David Thoreau
Who hears the fishes when they cry?
Henry David Thoreau
A fact may blossom into a truth.
Henry David Thoreau
My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought - with these I deal.
Henry David Thoreau
