Quote

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

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
People
Leave
Traveler
Since
Readers
Talk
Near
Reading
Miles
Home
Criticism
Come
Reader
Much
Short
Retain
Time
Thousand
Flattery

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If you would be chaste, you must be temperate.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done,and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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
Image
For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman... but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is tranquil people who accomplish much.
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
We should impart our courage and not our despair.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable of a bad one, to make it less valuable.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Surely the writer is to address a world of laborers, and such therefore must be his own discipline.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should chance to meet with such.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws.
Henry David Thoreau