Henry David Thoreau

American essayist, poet, and philosopher (1817–1862)

14 quotes in the MindQuotes library.

About

Henry David Thoreau, born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817, is a major figure of American Transcendentalism. A Harvard graduate in 1837, he befriended Ralph Waldo Emerson, who encouraged him to keep a journal. From 1845 to 1847, he lived in a cabin by Walden Pond, an experience recounted in his most famous work, Walden (1854). His essay Civil Disobedience (1849), inspired by his refusal to pay a poll tax in protest against slavery and the Mexican-American War, influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. A lifelong abolitionist, he defended John Brown after the Harpers Ferry raid. He died of tuberculosis in 1862.

* 1817-07-12 — † 1862-05-06

Major works

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)travel narrative
Civil Disobedience (1849)essay
Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854)philosophical autobiography
A Plea for Captain John Brown (1859)speech
The Succession of Forest Trees (1860)scientific essay

Key milestones

1837Graduated from Harvard College.
1845Moves into a cabin at Walden Pond.
1846Arrested for refusing to pay a poll tax.

Themes

Voluntary simplicityNature and ecologyCivil disobedienceIndividualismAbolitionism

Sources: loc.gov · iep.utm.edu

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Motivation

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“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Society

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“Simplify, simplify.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Wisdom

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“In the long run, we only hit what we aim at.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Success

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“OfF Things do not change - we change.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Change

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“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap into the dark to our success.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Motivation

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“0Iv Men are born to succeed, not fail.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Motivation

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“What a man thinks of himself is what determines, or rather indicates his fate.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Psychology

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“Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Work

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“Happiness is like a butterfly. The more you chase it, the more it eludes you. But if you turn your attention to other things , It comes and sits softly on your shoulder.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Happiness

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“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Personal Development

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“To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Knowledge

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“Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Knowledge

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“True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.”

— Henry David ThoreauTheme · Friendship

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