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Henry David Thoreau Biography

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (see name pronunciation; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

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Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight, New earths and skies and seas around, And in my day the sun doth pale his light.

Doth, Light, Pale, Range, Sea, Sight

The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods, and lives adivine life. By the healthful and invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a serene old age.

Age, Inspiration, Inspirational, Lives, Men, Serenity

The secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in mind.

Achievement, Hold, Inspirational, Secret, Success

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

Cost, Costs, Curtains, Hearth, Nature, Nothing

A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love, and know no otherlaw nor kindness.

Friendship, Guidance, True, True Friend, Wise, Yield

A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

Action, Calm, Leisure, Man, Men, Natural

What great interval is there between him who is caught in Africa and made a plantation slave of in the South, and him who is caught in New England and made a Unitarian minister of?

Africa, England, Freedom, Slave

There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

Extant, Life Is, Literature, Present, Uphold, Worse

When we consider the weak and nerveless periods of some literary men, who perchance in feet and inches come up to the standard oftheir race, and are not deficient in girth also, we are amazed at the immense sacrifice of thews and sinews. What! these proportions, these bones,--and this their work! Hands which could have felled an ox have hewed this fragile matter which would not have tasked a lady's fingers! Can this be a stalwart man's work, who has a marrow in his back and a tendon Achilles in his heel?

Back, Feet, Hands, Sacrifice, Standard, Women

The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry intotheir secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb mountains,--their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb the summit of Ktaadn.

Daring, Men, Pride, Sacred, Simple, Tops

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

Born, Regretting, Valentines Day, Wisdom, Wise

Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading?

Book, Brother, Harper, Leave, Reading, Redding

As I love nature, as I love singing birds. . . I love thee, my friend.

Bird, Birds, Love, Singing, Thee

We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves, that there may be grounds enough for friendship.

Enough, Friendship, Grounds, May, Needs, True

If we see nature as pausing, immediately all mortifies and decays; but seen as progressing, she is beautiful.

Beautiful, Decays, Nature, Progress, Progressing, Seen

White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. . . . They are too pure to have a market value;they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters are they! We never learned meanness of them.

Beautiful, Character, Lakes, Light, Walden

Friendship is evanescent in every man's experience, and remembered like heat lightning in past summers.

Evanescent, Experience, Friendship, Lightning, Past, Summer

To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.

Exaggeration, Exaggeration Is, Greater, Man, Men, Small Man

How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we might go and meet their ideal cousins.

Actual, Cousin, Friendship, Meet, Powerful, Turning

What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

Freedom, Mean, Moral, Moral Freedom, Political

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