Henry David Thoreau

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

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Lived 1817–1862, aged 45United States

United States WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
88 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1817–1862
Aged 45
Known for
La vie dans les bois -…
2025

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

He spent two years in a cabin by a pond and turned it into one of the most enduring arguments for living deliberately. Walden made solitude intellectual, and "Civil Disobedience" gave refusal a philosophy—one that traveled from Concord to Gandhi to King.

Biography

About

Born July 12, 1817, David Henry Thoreau—he later swapped the names—grew into a leading transcendentalist whose close observation of the natural world anticipated modern ecology. His two years of simple living near Walden Pond became Walden, a reflection that interweaves nature writing, personal experience, and philosophical austerity. His essay "Resistance to Civil Government" argued for citizen disobedience against unjust states, a stance he carried into abolitionism—lecturing against the fugitive slave law and defending John Brown. Over 20 volumes of books, journals, and poetry followed, mar…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

said1854

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

— "Slavery in Massachusetts" (1854)

Henry David Thoreau

said1848

Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual world!

— The Maine Woods (1848) Ktaadn

Henry David Thoreau

said8 Jun 1843

When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?

— Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson (8 June 1843)

Henry David Thoreau

saidOct 1842

The life that I aspire to liveNo man proposeth me—No trade upon the streetWears its emblazonry.

— "The Black Knight", l. 11. The Dial (October 1842) p. 180

Henry David Thoreau

saidOct 1842

My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read,'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at largeDown in the meadow, where is richer feed, And will not mind to hit their proper targe.

— "The Summer Rain", st. 1. The Dial (October 1842) p. 224

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