Quote

You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?

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
Poor
Dependence
Speak
Dependent
Reality
Independence
Truth
Appearance
Men
Independent
Poverty
Respect
Rich
Agreed

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blunderingclod-hopper that I am. Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an infinite brag and exaggeration. Not that I do not stand on all that I have written,--but what am I to the truth I feebly utter?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I am accustomed to think very long of going anywhere,--am slow to move. I hope to hear a response of the oracle first.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If to chaffer and higgle are bad in trade, they are much worse in Love. It demands directness as of an arrow.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Don't spend your time in drilling soldiers, who may turn out hirelings after all, but give to undrilled peasantry a country to fight for.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The man who does not betake himself at once and desperately to sawing is called a loafer, though he may be knocking at the doors of heaven all the while.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
In Adam's fall We sinned all. In the new Adam's rise, We shall all reach the skies.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies-neighbors are kind enough for that-but to do the like office to our spirits.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.
Henry David Thoreau