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If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui.

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
Diarist
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
Translator
Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Getting
Regulating
Lasts
Ennui
Last
Troubled
Lives
Mode
Living
According
Best
Indeed
Always
Labor
Never
Learned

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse and imperfect use Indiansand hunters make of nature! No wonder that their race is so soon exterminated.
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The authority of government . . . can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.
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Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.
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The mason asks but a narrow shelf to spring his brick from man requires only an infinitely narrower one to spring his arch of faith from.
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For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.
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Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
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If one hesitates in his path, let him not proceed. Let him respect his doubts, for doubts, too, may have some divinity in them.
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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.
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All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
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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.
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The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.
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Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment
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The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the means are increased.
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All expression of truth does at length take this deep ethical form.
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It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.
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To regret deeply is to live afresh.
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What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
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The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs.
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So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their good breeding respects only secondary objects.
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I do not wish, it happens, to be associated with Massachusetts, either in holding slaves or in conquering Mexico. I am a little better than herself in these respects.
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