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History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning ofthings, which natural history might with reason assume to do but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,--when did burdock and plantain sprout first?

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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Autobiographer
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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Naturalist
Philosopher
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
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Henry D. Thoreau
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Sprout
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.
Henry David Thoreau
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It is dry, hazy June weather. We are more of the earth, farther from heaven these days.
Henry David Thoreau
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I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I might go a- fishing. That's the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned.
Henry David Thoreau
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The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.
Henry David Thoreau
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That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living.
Henry David Thoreau
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Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.
Henry David Thoreau
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We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.
Henry David Thoreau
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No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.
Henry David Thoreau
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Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He'll be as dumb as if his lips were stone.
Henry David Thoreau
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Morning glory is the best name, it always refreshes me to see it.
Henry David Thoreau
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Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.
Henry David Thoreau
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Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections and the intellect.
Henry David Thoreau
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When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left.
Henry David Thoreau
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I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.
Henry David Thoreau
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But, commonly, men are as much afraid of love as of hate.
Henry David Thoreau
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Be not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested.
Henry David Thoreau
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Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.
Henry David Thoreau
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Endeavor to live the life you have imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
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A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.
Henry David Thoreau
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Let nothing come between you and the light.
Henry David Thoreau