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…
When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us, thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream: when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens.
The man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality. This is exhilarating and sublime.
If by patience, if by watching, I can secure one new ray of light, can feel myself elevated… shall I not watch ever?
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than to be crowded on a velvet cushion.
What is the use of going right over the old track again? You must make tracks into the unknown.
Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.
If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Night’s Entertainments. If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets.
