Henry David Thoreau
United States
12 Jul 1817 // 6 May 1862
Writer / Author / Poet
12 Jul 1817 // 6 May 1862
Writer / Author / Poet
Quotes
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We are ever dying to one world and being born into another
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting
Our truest life is when we are in our dreams, awake
If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things
To affect the quality of the day is the highest of the arts
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh
Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience
The perception of beauty is a moral test
The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them
People die of fright and live of confidence
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays
Essays