Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
We never conceive the greatness of our fates.
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
Fate
Destiny
Never
Fates
Conceive
Greatness
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.
Henry David Thoreau
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
I mean that they (students) should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics.
Henry David Thoreau
Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners?
Henry David Thoreau
The man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.
Henry David Thoreau
The eye is the jewel of the body.
Henry David Thoreau
By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.
Henry David Thoreau
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
Henry David Thoreau
Like speaks to like only labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.
Henry David Thoreau
I have seen some whose consciences, owing undoubtedly to former indulgence, had grown to be as irritable as spoilt children, and at length gave them no peace. They did not know when to swallow their cud, and their lives of course yielded no milk.
Henry David Thoreau
As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtlest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky.
Henry David Thoreau
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
Henry David Thoreau
To live a better life,--this surely can be done.
Henry David Thoreau
It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.
Henry David Thoreau
Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye. He must look through and beyond her.
Henry David Thoreau
As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full.
Henry David Thoreau
Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you'll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you'll be in as much trouble as I am!
Henry David Thoreau
He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.
Henry David Thoreau
Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world?
Henry David Thoreau
I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.
Henry David Thoreau
