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The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it succeeds.

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
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Writer
birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Succeed
Till
Wind
Breath
Purpose
Breaths
Spirit
Determination
Stagger
Cannot
Material
Succeeds
Character
Rock
Split
Men
Materials
Splits
Rocks
Strongest

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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We are all of us Apollos serving some Admetus.
Henry David Thoreau
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The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.
Henry David Thoreau
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I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful.
Henry David Thoreau
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A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.
Henry David Thoreau
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I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert.
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How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we might go and meet their ideal cousins.
Henry David Thoreau
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We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.
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There are sure to be two prescriptions diametrically opposite.
Henry David Thoreau
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The vessel, though her masts be firm,Beneath her copper bears a worm.
Henry David Thoreau
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The most interesting thing which I heard of, in this township of Hull, was an unfailing spring, whose locality was pointed out tome on the side of a distant hill, as I was panting along the shore, though I did not visit it. Perhaps, if I should go through Rome, it would be some spring on the Capitoline Hill I should remember the longest.
Henry David Thoreau
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I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated fromlong housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn.
Henry David Thoreau
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Of what significance are the things you can forget.
Henry David Thoreau
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As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtlest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky.
Henry David Thoreau
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I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They have n't got life enough in them.... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began.
Henry David Thoreau
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If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment. [Like they say, 'Every cloud has a silver lining'...so if you are patient, expect, anticipate, look and work for some good to come from the cloud, you will be rewarded eventually!]
Henry David Thoreau
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I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a Freedom and Culture merely civil, - to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.
Henry David Thoreau
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New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion.
Henry David Thoreau
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Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.
Henry David Thoreau
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Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as if it were redeemed. When the desire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly elevated, and so far better already.
Henry David Thoreau
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You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint No Admittance on my gate.
Henry David Thoreau