Quotes by Henry David Thoreau with world

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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  • 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.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • In wildness is the preservation of the world.
    ― Henry David Thoreau
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  • Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
    ― 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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What are the most famous quotes from Henry David Thoreau?

The two most famous quotes from Henry David Thoreau are:

  • "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."
  • "The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine."

When did Henry David Thoreau live?

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