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The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods, and lives adivine life. By the healthful and invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a serene old age.

Henry David Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
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The voice of nature is always encouraging.
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The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.
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At death our friends and relatives either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart farther from us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.
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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.
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To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.
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Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
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The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this?
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We find it difficult to choose our direction because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.
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I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated fromlong housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn.
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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.
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Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.
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If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless.
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My greatest skill has been to want but little.
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How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws.
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True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.
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If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui.
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The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.
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What is sour in the house a bracing walk in the woods makes sweet.
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The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.
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For a man to act himself, he must be perfectly free otherwise he is in danger of losing all sense of responsibility or of self- respect.
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