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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
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Henry David Thoreau
Age: 44 †
Born: 1817
Born: July 12
Died: 1862
Died: May 6
Abolitionist
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Naturalist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.
Henry David Thoreau
God is alone,-but the devil, he is far from being alone he sees a great deal of company he is legion.
Henry David Thoreau
What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,--for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.
Henry David Thoreau
If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man--not to make any invidious comparison--is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.... Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet.
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
Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive.
Henry David Thoreau
A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are struck.
Henry David Thoreau
It seems as if the more youthful and impressible streams can hardly resist the numerous invitations and temptations to leave theirnative beds and run down their neighbors' channels.
Henry David Thoreau
As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle but I think that I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made.
Henry David Thoreau
No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know.
Henry David Thoreau
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Henry David Thoreau
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.
Henry David Thoreau
Read not the Times, read the Eternities.
Henry David Thoreau
Time is like a handful of sand - the tighter you grasp it, the faster it runs through your fingers.
Henry David Thoreau
No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?
Henry David Thoreau
You don't know your testament when you see it.
Henry David Thoreau
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way.
Henry David Thoreau
If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.
Henry David Thoreau
I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
Henry David Thoreau
Here or nowhere is our heaven.
Henry David Thoreau