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There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.

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
Class
Satisfies
Art
Palate
Two
Classes
Men
Poets
Life
Hunger
Poet
Poetry
Gratifies
Called
Cultivates

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The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must bestripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living laid for a foundation.
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The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly.
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I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
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There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
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If I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler.
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It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.
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The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity when contrasted with a finer intelligence. They appear but as the fashions of past days,--mere courtliness, knee-buckles and small- clothes, out of date.
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The Slothful do not have the time to become virtuous or despicable.
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Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act.
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It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.
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Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much.
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When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?
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Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.
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What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own.
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All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it.
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It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard.
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Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk.
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How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?
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Translate a book a dozen times from one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would be worn out and disappear in this ordeal. The pen which wrote it is soon destroyed, but the poem survives.
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I have seen more men than usual, lately and, well as I was acquainted with one, I am surprised to find what vulgar fellows they are.
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