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Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?--to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.
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
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Merely
Withdrawn
Morning
Veil
Veils
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Inward
Night
Significance
Light
Dawn
Garish
Soul
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Glaring
Nothing
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Be wary of technology it is often merely an improved means to an unimproved end.
Henry David Thoreau
To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.
Henry David Thoreau
In some pictures of Provincetown the persons of the inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be buried in the sand.
Henry David Thoreau
Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a sort of locomotiveness they move a side at a time, and man, by his machinery, is meeting the horse and the ox half-way.
Henry David Thoreau
What stuff is the man made of who is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and sublimest truth?
Henry David Thoreau
A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!
Henry David Thoreau
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety.
Henry David Thoreau
We bless and curse ourselves.
Henry David Thoreau
We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.
Henry David Thoreau
Resign yourself to the influence of the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
. . . I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days. . . .
Henry David Thoreau
I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me. I saw where it was born deep down under feathers and fur, or condemned for a while to roam four-footed among the brambles,I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner and swore that I would be faithful.
Henry David Thoreau
Who is old enough to have learned from experience?
Henry David Thoreau
It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always.
Henry David Thoreau
But labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudgery, is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It has a constantand imperishable moral, and to the scholar it yields a classic result.
Henry David Thoreau
In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
Henry David Thoreau
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
Henry David Thoreau
The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more beautiful to live low and farehard in many respects and though I never did so, I went far enough to please my imagination.
Henry David Thoreau