Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The past is only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on which our idea of heroism is painted, and so, in one sense, the dim prospectus of our future field.
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
Heroic
Field
Fields
Future
Idea
Sense
Painted
Past
Heroism
Ideas
Canvas
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
We are ashamed of our fear for we know that a righteous man would not suspect danger nor incur any. Wherever a man feels fear, there is an avenger.
Henry David Thoreau
For things to change, we must change.
Henry David Thoreau
I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
Henry David Thoreau
For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?
Henry David Thoreau
Even Nature is observed to have her playful moods or aspects, of which man sometimes seems to be the sport.
Henry David Thoreau
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.
Henry David Thoreau
The only government that I recognize--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army--is that power thatestablishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice.
Henry David Thoreau
I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
Henry David Thoreau
When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.
Henry David Thoreau
The forests are held cheap after the white pine has been culled out and the explorers and hunters pray for rain only to clear theatmosphere of smoke.
Henry David Thoreau
There may be something petty in a refined taste it easily degenerates into effeminacy. It does not consider the broadest use. It is not content with simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and curious or nice only.
Henry David Thoreau
How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are!
Henry David Thoreau
A sufficiently great and generous trust could never be abused.
Henry David Thoreau
To speak or do anything that shall concern mankind, one must speak and act as if well, or from that grain of health which he has left.
Henry David Thoreau
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success. What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the longest practice, and at length it falls from us without our notice, as a leaf from a tree.
Henry David Thoreau
Faith, indeed, is all the reform that is needed it is itself a reform.
Henry David Thoreau
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
A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.
Henry David Thoreau
There must be the... generating force of Love behind every effort destined to be successful.
Henry David Thoreau
