Henry David Thoreau (12 July 1817 – 6 May 1862) was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
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Also Known As
Birth Name:
David Henry Thoreau
Alternative Names:
Thoreau
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Henry D. Thoreau
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Henry Thoreau
I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.
Who cares what a man's style is, so it is intelligible, —as intelligible as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the stylus, the pen he writes with; and it is not worth scraping and polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for it.
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