Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Biography, too, is liable to the same objection it should be autobiography. Let us not, as the Germans advise, endeavor to go abroad and vex our bowels that we may be somebody else to explain him. If I am not I, who will be?
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
Abroad
Objection
Endeavor
Biography
Explain
Objections
Somebody
Germans
Else
Liable
May
Biographies
Advise
Vex
Autobiography
Bowels
More quotes by Henry David Thoreau
If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.
Henry David Thoreau
We hate the kindness which we understand.
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
I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal theireggs still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,--it is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens.
Henry David Thoreau
The world is a strange place for a playhouse to stand within it.
Henry David Thoreau
In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.
Henry David Thoreau
In all perception of the truth there is a divine ecstasy, an inexpressible delirium of joy, as when a youth embraces his betrothed virgin.
Henry David Thoreau
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
There is absolutely no common sense, it is common non-sense.
Henry David Thoreau
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.
Henry David Thoreau
We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.
Henry David Thoreau
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
Henry David Thoreau
Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.
Henry David Thoreau
The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost.
Henry David Thoreau
We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.
Henry David Thoreau
Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye.
Henry David Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?
Henry David Thoreau
The man who does not betake himself at once and desperately to sawing is called a loafer, though he may be knocking at the doors of heaven all the while.
Henry David Thoreau
We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.
Henry David Thoreau
