I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

—Henry David Thoreau

gratitude nature honor divinity

About Henry David Thoreau

Portrait of Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance...

More quotations from Henry David Thoreau

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

—Henry David Thoreau

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 Thoreau

It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.

—Henry David Thoreau

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

—Henry David Thoreau

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 the reality.

—Henry David Thoreau

More quotations tagged with “divinity”

It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.

action thinking divinity

People see God every day; they just don't recognize him.

—Pearl Bailey

God recognition divinity

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

—Henry David Thoreau

genius nature divinity

I recently invented a new theory: ambitheism. This is the doctrine that God both does and doesn't exist. I have noticed that when I try to believe in God, I am filled with sudden moments of despair that God is absent, but when I try to be an atheist, I slowly come to believe in a divine will. Thus, I have concluded that both ideas are true. God simultaneously is and isn't.

—Michael Gorelick

truth God belief despair divinity atheism

The veil between us and the divine is more permeable than we imagine.

—Sue Patton Thoele

imagination divine divinity