Quote

We have need to be earth-born as well as heaven-born, gegeneis, as was said of the Titans of old, or in a better sense than they.

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
Well
Need
Titans
Needs
Heaven
Born
Sense
Earth
Better
Wells

More quotes by Henry David Thoreau

Image
The future is too soon the past. So make perseverance your excellence and go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Go not to the object let the object come to you.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
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
Image
Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
A journal, is a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy, what you are grateful for.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
I walk out into a nature such as the old prophets and poets Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name it America, but it is not America. Neither Americus Vespucius, nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer account of it in Mythology than in any history of America so called that I have seen.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Give me the old familiar world, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of spring.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Work your vein till it is exhausted, or conducts you to a broader one.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Some have asked if the stock of men could not be improved,--if they could not be bred as cattle. Let Love be purified, and all therest will follow. A pure love is thus, indeed, the panacea for all the ills of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
The greatest tragedy in life is to spend your whole life fishing only to discover it was never fish that you were after.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is dry, hazy June weather. We are more of the earth, farther from heaven these days.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair's breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance ... To perceive freshly, with fresh senses is to be inspired.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy, Literature, and Religion, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle. But if a man sleeps soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn.
Henry David Thoreau
Image
He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth.
Henry David Thoreau