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I could lecture on dry oak leaves I could, but who would hear me? If I were to try it on any large audience, I fear it would be no gain to them, and a positive loss to me. I should have behaved rudely toward my rustling friends.
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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birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau
Henry D. Thoreau
Trying
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Behaved
Would
Toward
Lecture
Positive
Oaks
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Dry
Audience
Gain
Friends
Leaves
Rudely
Fear
Gains
Rustling
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
Our science, so called, is always more barren and mixed with error than our sympathies.
Henry David Thoreau
For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects. I was so absorbed in him as to be surprised whenever I detected the routine of the natural world surviving still, or met persons going about their affairs indifferent.
Henry David Thoreau
If you're familiar with a principle you don't have to be familiar with all of its applications.
Henry David Thoreau
It [is of] some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessities of life.
Henry David Thoreau
One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.
Henry David Thoreau
Comparatively, we can excuse any offense against the heart, but not against the imagination. The imagination knows--nothing escapes its glance from out its eyry--and it controls the breast.
Henry David Thoreau
I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.
Henry David Thoreau
How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?
Henry David Thoreau
I have no time to be in a hurry.
Henry David Thoreau
I have much to learn of the Indian, nothing of the missionary.
Henry David Thoreau
I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable but my friend is my amiableness personified.
Henry David Thoreau
Nothing can shock a brave man but dullness.
Henry David Thoreau
Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
Henry David Thoreau
The sacredness, if there is any, is all in yourself and not in the place.
Henry David Thoreau
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however, ancient, can be trusted without proof. ... Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
Henry David Thoreau
Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections and the intellect.
Henry David Thoreau
What the first philosopher taught the last will have to repeat.
Henry David Thoreau
Always the laws of light are the same, but the modes and degrees of seeing vary.
Henry David Thoreau
I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
Henry David Thoreau
There is no just and serene criticism as yet.
Henry David Thoreau
