Quote

Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.

Henry David Thoreau

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Much
Manners
Poet
Poetry
Style
Character
Best

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
I have a great deal of company in my house especially in the morning, when nobody calls.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I once found a kernel of corn in the middle of a deep wood by Walden, tucked in behind a lichen on a pine, about as high as my head, either by a crow or a squirrel. It was a mile at least from any corn-field.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Can we not do without the society of our gossip a little while, - have our own thoughts to cheer us?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Why look in the dark for light?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I make my own time. I make my own terms. I cannot see how God or Nature can ever get the start of me.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
As I love nature, as I love singing birds...I love thee, my friend.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Truly, our greatest blessings are very cheap.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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
Image
We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
When my legs begin to move, the thoughts begin to flow.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution - such call I good books.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what we do and yet how much is not done by us!
Henry David Thoreau