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The theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny accomplishment. It is with a certain coldness and languor that we loiter about the actual and so-called practical.
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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Autobiographer
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
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Practicals
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it.
Henry David Thoreau
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau
What is religion? That which is never spoken.
Henry David Thoreau
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau
We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.
Henry David Thoreau
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Henry David Thoreau
I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints.
Henry David Thoreau
While some men believe in the infinite, some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.
Henry David Thoreau
Every sentence is the result of a long probation.
Henry David Thoreau
Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk.
Henry David Thoreau
So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.
Henry David Thoreau
In their daily life, all are braver than they know.
Henry David Thoreau
If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?
Henry David Thoreau
The intellect of most men is barren. They neither fertilize or are fertilized. It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination...without nature-awakened imagination most persons do not really live in the world, they merely pass through it as they live dull lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau
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
Henry David Thoreau
Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and Spring.
Henry David Thoreau
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.
Henry David Thoreau
But, commonly, men are as much afraid of love as of hate.
Henry David Thoreau
Friends are made for caring and sharing. Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
Henry David Thoreau
Time & Co. are, after all, the only quite honest and trustworthy publishers that we know.
Henry David Thoreau
