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We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.
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
Contracted
Gods
Inspire
Friendship
Men
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
The voice of nature is always encouraging.
Henry David Thoreau
Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much.
Henry David Thoreau
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.
Henry David Thoreau
Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
Henry David Thoreau
Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.
Henry David Thoreau
As a preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which that is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a skillful economist at once.
Henry David Thoreau
A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep.
Henry David Thoreau
No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of spring.
Henry David Thoreau
As I love nature, as I love singing birds...I love thee, my friend.
Henry David Thoreau
The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,--the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,--at least apparently,--but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.
Henry David Thoreau
The hounding of a dog pursuing a fox or other animal in the horizon may have first suggested the notes of the hunting-horn to alternate with and relieve the lungs of the dog. This natural bugle long resounded in the woods of the ancient world before the horn was invented.
Henry David Thoreau
You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.
Henry David Thoreau
Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.
Henry David Thoreau
Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, seewhat isbefore you, and walkon intofuturity.
Henry David Thoreau
Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up.
Henry David Thoreau
Most think that they are above being supported by the town but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which would be more disreputable.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Everything counts for gain when we are cosmically awake. Nothing counts, unless we are awake. No enjoyments last, no successes satisfy, no gains have meaning unless accomplished in a state of wakefulness.
Henry David Thoreau
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.
Henry David Thoreau
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
Henry David Thoreau
