Quotes by Henry David Thoreau with men

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

American writer

Lived from: 1817 - 1862

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 12 july 1817 Died: 6 may 1862

  • There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
  • A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
  • On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.
  • Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it.
  • There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.
  • What is peculiar in the life of a man consists not in his obedience, but his opposition, to his instincts. In one direction or another he strives to live a supernatural life.
  • The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled.
  • I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.
  • When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.
  • Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?
  • I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.
  • All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.
  • To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
  • I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.
  • The man for who the law exists - the man of forms, the conservative - is a tame man.
  • The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.
  • As to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have not a very high opinion of that course.
  • I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage.
  • Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice.
  • One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then
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  • He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Many men go fishing their entire lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Men are born to succeed, not fail.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Men have become the tools of their trade.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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What are the most famous quotes from Henry David Thoreau?

The two most famous quotes from Henry David Thoreau are:

  • "He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience."
  • "If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible."

When did Henry David Thoreau live?

Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 and died in the year 1862.