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Henry David Thoreau

Read through the most famous quotes from Henry David Thoreau




The greatest art is to shape the quality of the day.


— Henry David Thoreau


#art

If a man does not keep pace with his companion, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.


— Henry David Thoreau


#individuality #conformity

He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.


— Henry David Thoreau


#environmental #henry-david-thoreau #love #nature #science

We should impart our courage and not our despair.


— Henry David Thoreau


#courage

The tragedy in a man’s life is what dies inside of him while he lives.


— Henry David Thoreau


#life

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.


— Henry David Thoreau


#practicality #wisdom #age

Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing.


— Henry David Thoreau


#nature #nature

If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.


— Henry David Thoreau


#henry-david-thoreau #nature

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.


— Henry David Thoreau


#experience

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.


— Henry David Thoreau


#alive #aright #better #creature #dead






About Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau Quotes




Did you know about Henry David Thoreau?

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor. Of all ebriosity who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?"


Social and political influence

Thoreau's political writings had little impact during his lifetime as "his contemporaries did not see him as a theorist or as a radical viewing him instead as a naturalist. A legend proposes that Thoreau refused to pay the five-dollar fee for a Harvard diploma.

Thoreau's books articles essays journals and poetry total over 20 volumes. His literary style interweaves close natural observation personal experience pointed rhetoric symbolic meanings and historical lore while displaying a poetic sensibility philosophical austerity and "Yankee" love of practical detail. He is best known for his book Walden a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings and his essay Civil Disobedience an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

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