Quote

Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue caught from a vaster receding thought.

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
Failing
Verses
Poetry
Fails
Written
Near
Though
Miracle
Inconceivably
Inspirational
Caught
Vaster
Thought
Crisis
Receding
May
Exactly
Hue
Right
Poet
Verse

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we beginto keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love and in proportion to our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal. . . . Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
. . . we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Let your condiments be in the condition of your senses.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men's beginning to redeem themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The constant abrasion and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We live but a fraction of our lives.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
My neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table but I am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners chiefly but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
What is man but a mass of thawing clay?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
When some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have answered yes-- remembering that it was one of the best parts of my education-- make them hunters.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition and Massachusettsis one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love.
Henry David Thoreau