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All men are really most attracted by the beauty of plain speech, and they even write in a florid style in imitation of this. Theyprefer to be misunderstood rather than to come short of its exuberance.
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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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Rather
Misunderstood
Write
Attracted
Come
Imitation
Writing
Plain
Even
Speech
Really
Short
Men
Style
Florid
Beauty
Exuberance
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts.
Henry David Thoreau
I want the flower and fruit of a man that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse.
Henry David Thoreau
Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are.
Henry David Thoreau
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
Henry David Thoreau
I do not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster.
Henry David Thoreau
I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.
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
What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own.
Henry David Thoreau
My eye is educated to discover anything on the ground, as chestnuts, etc. It is probably wholesomer to look at the ground much than at the heavens.
Henry David Thoreau
The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day.
Henry David Thoreau
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
Dissent without action is consent.
Henry David Thoreau
Comparatively, we can excuse any offense against the heart, but not against the imagination. The imagination knows--nothing escapes its glance from out its eyry--and it controls the breast.
Henry David Thoreau
However mean your life is, meet it and live it.
Henry David Thoreau
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.
Henry David Thoreau
But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.
Henry David Thoreau
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.
Henry David Thoreau
It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination
Henry David Thoreau
Since you are my readers, and I have not been much of a traveler, I will not talk about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the criticism.
Henry David Thoreau
Here or nowhere is our heaven.
Henry David Thoreau
