Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
But labor of the hands, even when pursued to the verge of drudgery, is perhaps never the worst form of idleness. It has a constantand imperishable moral, and to the scholar it yields a classic result.
Henry David Thoreau
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Never
Labor
Yields
Perhaps
Verge
Worst
Idleness
Results
Pursued
Moral
Scholar
Hands
Yield
Form
Classic
Imperishable
Even
Result
Drudgery
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.
Henry David Thoreau
The man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.
Henry David Thoreau
There is no just and serene criticism as yet.
Henry David Thoreau
Some, it seems to me, elect their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick makes the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler.
Henry David Thoreau
We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution - such call I good books.
Henry David Thoreau
I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not truly lived.
Henry David Thoreau
It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning.
Henry David Thoreau
Tough times don't last but tough people do. No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch. Men are born to succeed, not fail.
Henry David Thoreau
Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Henry David Thoreau
Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.
Henry David Thoreau
Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.
Henry David Thoreau
Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.
Henry David Thoreau
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate the world....There is naked Nature, inhumanly sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray.
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
One should be always on the trail of one's own deepest nature. For it is the fearless living out of your own essential nature that connects you to the Divine.
Henry David Thoreau
Wealth can't buy heath, but heath can buy wealth.
Henry David Thoreau
So near along life's stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin and the voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these uncontaminated sources.
Henry David Thoreau
For if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men?
Henry David Thoreau
