Quote

The chickadee and nuthatch are more inspiring society than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall return to these last as to more vulgar companions.

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
Return
Companions
Shall
Statesmen
Society
Philosophers
Lasts
Vulgar
Last
Companion
Nature
Philosopher
Inspiring
Civilization

More quotes by 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
Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shellfish and the hectic glow of consumption.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
A strange age of the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard pushed and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart it being much more sensitive.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The highest condition of art is artlessness.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
In the long run, you hit only what you aim at.
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
Left to herself, nature is always more or less civilized, and delights in a certain refinement but where the axe has encroached upon the edge of the forest, the dead and unsightly limbs of the pine, which she had concealed with green banks of verdure, are exposed to sight.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I should consider it a greater success to interest one wise and earnest soul, than a million unwise and frivolous.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
A simple woman down in Tyngsborough, at whose house I once stopped to get a draught of water, when I said, recognizing the bucket, that I had stopped there nine years before for the same purpose, asked if I was not a traveler, supposing that I had been traveling ever since, and had now come round again.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
As for health, consider yourself well.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.What are the convulsions of a planet, compared with the emotions of the soul? or the rising of a thousand suns, if that is not enlightened by a ray?
Henry David Thoreau
Image
But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the edge of the satire.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I love the broad margin to my life.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Be not merely good. Be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their greatest deed is the impression they make on me.
Henry David Thoreau