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Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are constantly being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.

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
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Ecologist
Environmentalist
Essayist
Naturalist
Philosopher
Poet
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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
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Henry D. Thoreau
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Constantly
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More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

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Some would find fault with the morning, if they ever got up early enough.. The fault find faults even in Paradise.
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If you will not try, you will go to your grave with your song still inside you.
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It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
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I lose my respect for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of a coarse jest, yet when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent.
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Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution.
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There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.
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Many men walk by day few walk by night. It is a different season.
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The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor
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Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.
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Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.
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Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might be written today for the next ten years with sufficientaccuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to interest, still less alarm us but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend.
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It would seem as if the very language of our parlors would lose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far fetched.
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Do not engage to find things as you think they are.
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Nature is not made after such a fashion as we would have her. We piously exaggerate her wonders, as the scenery around our home.
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It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.
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Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.
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When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance?
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The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.
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It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.
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There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau