Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) was an American essayist, poet, and philosopher from Concord, Massachusetts. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau’s books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy.
Quotes by Henry David Thoreau…
What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past.
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.
The fault–finder will find faults even in paradise.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.
It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.