Quote

I always see those of whom I have heard well with a slight disappointment. They are so much better than the great herd, and yet the heavens are not shivered into diamonds over their heads.

Henry David Thoreau

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Heard
Herd
Heaven
Diamonds
Better
Herds
Wells
Slight
Well
Heavens
Great
Diamond
Much
Heads
Always
Disappointment
Shivered

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
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
Image
I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We should read history as little critically as we consider the landscape, and be more interested by the atmospheric tints and various lights and shades which the intervening spaces create than by its groundwork and composition.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I derive no pleasure from talking with a young woman simply because she has regular features.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The tree of Knowledge is a Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Let us consider under what disadvantages Science has hitherto labored before we pronounce thus confidently on her progress.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Man is but the place where I stand.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them - as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The same law that shapes the earth-star shapes the snow-star. As surely as the petals of a flower are fixed, each of these countless snow-stars comes whirling to earth...these glorious spangles, the sweeping of heaven's floor.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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
Image
Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually thus fair and distinct? All our lives want a suitable background. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in a desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Do not read the newspapers.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Duty is one and invariable it requires no impossibilities, nor can it ever be disregarded with impunity.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Our thoughts are epochs in our lives all else is but as a journal of the winds that blow while we are here.
Henry David Thoreau