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1817, Jul 121837-18621862, May 6
an American author, 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.
 Timeline (4)
07/04/1845-Henry David Thoreau moves into his shack on Walden Pond
08/14/1846-Henry David Thoreau jailed for tax resistance 
09/06/1847-Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden and moves in with the Emersons
08/09/1854-Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden
 Mentions (1)
John Josselyn
...colonial times, and his outlook was later praised by Henry David Thoreau, among others. Little is known about his life....
 Quotes (266) • View in Quotations
'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.
...be yourself -- not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.
A bore is someone who takes away my solitude and doesn't give me companionship in return.
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.
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.
After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil. The fight to the finish spirit is the one... characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers.
All good things are wild and free.
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
An unclean person is universally a slothful one.
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Be not simply good - be good for something.
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.
Being is the great explainer.
Beware of all enterprises that require a new set of clothes
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.
Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.
But government in which the majority rule in all cases can not be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?
Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
Do not lose hold of your dreams or asprirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends... Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.
Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?
Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.
Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
Faith never makes a confession.
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.
He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?
How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?
How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
However mean your life is, meet it and live it.
I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.
I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.
I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.
I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.
I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.
I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that 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.
I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
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 that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.
I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
I stand in awe of my body.
I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.
I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every disappointment.
If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.
In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.
In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.
In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.
Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning around.
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.
It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.
It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.
It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of today.
It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.
It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.
Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
Live the life you've dreamed.
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
May we so love as never to have occasion to repent of our love!
Men are born to succeed, not to fail.
Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
Men have become the tools of their tools.
Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man's nobler faculties.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.
Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.
Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.
No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something.
One must maintain a little bittle of summer, even in the middle of winter.
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
Simplify, simplify.
Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
That government is best which governs least.
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
The heart is forever inexperienced.
The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
The language of friendship is not words but meanings.
The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.
The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
The perception of beauty is a moral test.
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.
The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
The universe is wider than our views of it.
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.
There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.
There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.
There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.
There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.
There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.
There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.
There is no just and serene criticism as yet.
There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.
There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.
There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.
There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.
There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.
They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.
Things do not change; we change.
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.
Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.
To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.
To regret deeply is to live afresh.
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.
Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.
Truths and roses have thorns about them.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.
We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.
We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.
We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.
What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.
What is once well done is done forever.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
What people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.
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.
Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
[Water is] the only drink for a wise man.
 Contemporaries
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172
Henry David Thoreau1817, Jul 121837
 
18621862, May 6

Huang Yupianunknown1838
 
 
1838unknown
 best known as the author of A Detailed Refutation of Heresy, written in 1838. A native of ...
Christian Heinrich Nebbien17781783
 
18391841
  a German-born landscaping architect, mainly active in Austria. He also wrote a book on the metho...
Solomon Southwick1773, Dec 251792
 
18391839, Nov 18
 a New York newspaper publisher and political figure who was a principal organizer of the Anti-Mas...
Marta Helena Reenstierna1753, Sep 161793
 
18391841, Jan 12
 a Swedish diary writer. Her diaries were written in the period 1793–1839, and are kept at the a...
Charles Follen1796, Sep 61818
 
18391840, Jan 13
 a German poet and patriot, who later moved to the United States and became the first professor of...
Joseph Antoine Cerviniunknown1820
 
1839unknown
 an author who provided the text for a book titled Voyage Pittoresque dans les Pyrénées Françai...
Huang Juezi17931823
 
18391853
 a Chinese Qing dynasty scholar and civil servant and a fervent opponent of the opium trade. His 1...
Thomas Ruffin Gray18001830
 
1839unknown
 an attorney who represented several enslaved people during the trials in the wake of Nat Turner's...
William Tooneunknown1830
 
1839unknown
 Author of A Glossary and Etymological Dictionary: Of Obsolete and Uncommon Words (Bennett:...
Johan Olof Wallin1779, Oct 151837
 
18391839, Jun 30
 a Swedish minister, orator, poet and later Lutheran Church of Sweden Archbishop of Uppsala, Swede...
Joel Root17701802
 
18401847
 the author of a journal of his voyage around the world (1802–1806) while working as supercargo ...
Francis Scott Key1779, Aug 11805
 
18401843, Jan 11
 an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet from Frederick, Maryland and later Georgetown, D.C.,...
Edmund Fanning [2]1769, Jul 161773
 
18411841, Apr 23
 an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific." As master of the ...
Asher Benjamin1773, Jun 151794
 
18411845, Jul 26
 an American architect and author whose work transitioned between Federal style architecture and t...
Washington Allston1779, Nov 51801
 
18411843, Jul 9
 an American painter and poet, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America'...
Marguerite Gardiner1789, Sep 11829
 
18411849, Jun 4
 an Irish novelist, journalist, and literary hostess. After her husband's death she supplemented h...
Noah Webster1758, Oct 161781
 
18431843, May 28
 an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer...
Alexander Griswold1766, Apr 221836
 
18431843, Feb 15
 the 5th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church from 1836 till 1843. He was also the Episcopal B...
Yevgeny Baratynsky1800, Feb 191820
 
18441844, Jul 11
 A poet, lauded by Alexander Pushkin as the finest Russian elegiac poet. A member of the noble Bar...
Joseph Smith1805, Dec 231827
 
18441844, Jun 27
 an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he ...
Thomas S. Hinde1785, Apr 191801
 
18451846, Feb 9
 an American newspaper editor, opponent of slavery, author, historian, real estate investor, Metho...
Joseph Story1779, Sep 181801
 
18451845, Sep 10
 an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1...
Thomas Moore1779, May 281795
 
18461852, Feb 25
 an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Min...
Erik Gustaf Geijer1783, Jan 121803
 
18461847, Apr 23
 a Swedish writer, historian, poet, philosopher, and composer. His writings served to promote Swed...
Edouard Alletz17981822
 
18461850
 a French diplomat who wrote a large variety of poems, history, and essays between the years of 18...
William Wordsworth1770, Apr 71787
 
18471850, Apr 23
 a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Ag...
Robert Montgomery Bird1806, Feb 51827
 
18471854, Jan 23
 an American novelist, playwright, and physician. In 1828, Bird's play Pelopidas won a $1000 prize...
Christianus Petrus Eliza Robide van der Aa1791, Oct 71811
 
18481851, May 14
 a Dutch jurist and author. In the Volksbode, which he edited and almost singlehandedly wrote from...
Nikolai Gogol1809, Mar 191828
 
18481852, Feb 21
 a Russian dramatist of Ukrainian origin. Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries one ...
Horace Wells1815, Jan 211836
 
18481848, Jan 24
 an American dentist who pioneered the use of anesthesia in dentistry, specifically nitrous oxide ...
Wilhelm Freiherr von Biela1782, Mar 191802
 
18491856, Feb 18
 a German-Austrian military officer and amateur astronomer. In the field of astronomy, he speciali...
Leo von Klenze1784, Feb 291808
 
18491864, Jan 26
 a German neoclassicist architect, painter and writer. Court architect of Bavarian King Ludwig I, ...
William Miller1782, Feb 151809
 
18491849, Dec 20
 an American Baptist preacher who is credited with beginning the mid-19th century North American r...
Edgar Allan Poe1809, Jan 191827
 
18491849, Oct 7
 an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stori...
Joseph Zedner1804, Feb 101830
 
18491871, Oct 10
 a German Jewish bibliographer and librarian. In 1832 he became a tutor in the family of the book-...
Ramon Alcarazunknown1840
 
 
1849unknown
 an officer in the Mexican Army who wrote many books about the Mexican-American War, including 184...
Mary Shelley1797, Aug 301810
 
18501851, Feb 1
 an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best...
Richard Garnett1789, Jul 251811
 
18501850, Sep 27
 an English philologist (historical linguist), author and librarian at the British Museum. Garnett...
Frederic Bastiat1801, Jun 301818
 
18501850, Dec 24
 a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, Freemason, and member of the French Nat...
Edward Boys17491796
 
18511866
 an English sea captain. In 1803, Boys, when in charge of a prize, was made prisoner by the French...
Lorenz Oken1779, Aug 11802
 
18511851, Aug 11
 a German naturalist, botanist, biologist, and ornithologist. Oken was born Lorenz Okenfuss (Germa...
Sylvester Graham1794, Jul 51828
 
18511851, Sep 11
 a 19th-century Presbyterian minister, was an American dietary reformer, best known for his emphas...
Petar II Petrovic-Njegos1813, Nov 11830
 
18511851, Oct 19
 a Prince-Bishop (vladika) of Montenegro, poet and philosopher whose works are widely considered s...
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen1778, Sep 91796
 
18521852, Jan 13
 a Baltic-German officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, cartographer and explorer, ultimately rose ...
Francois Arago1786, Feb 261804
 
18521853, Oct 2
 a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, freemason, supporter of the carbonari and politici...
Eliza Lanesford Cushing1794, Oct 191820
 
18521886, May 4
 an American-Canadian dramatist, short story writer, and editor. The daughter of Hannah Webster Fo...
John Lloyd Stephens1805, Nov 281834
 
18521852, Oct 13
 an American explorer, writer, and diplomat. He initially entered law practice in New York. After ...
Thomas De Quincey1785, Aug 151802
 
18531859, Dec 8
 an English essayist, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821). Many...
Maria White Lowell1821, Jul 81839
 
 
18531853, Oct 27
 an American poet and abolitionist. The same year, Maria White's brother William introduced her to...
Eliza Allen1826, Jan 271846
 
 
1853unknown
 a Maine woman who, in 1851, published a memoir called The Female Volunteer; Or the Life and Wo...
Almeida Garrett1799, Feb 41818
 
18541854, Dec 9
 a Portuguese poet, playwright, novelist and politician. He is considered to be the introducer of ...
Thomas Chilton1798, Jul 301819
 
18541854, Aug 15
 a U.S. Representative from Kentucky, a prominent Baptist clergyman, and the ghost writer of Davy ...
Daniel Florence O'Leary18011820
 
18541854
 a military general and aide-de-camp under Simon Bolivar. He was born in Cork, Ireland; his father...
Robert Schumann18101830
 
18541856
 a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest comp...
Leigh Hunt1784, Oct 191801
 
18551859, Aug 28
 an English critic, essayist, poet, and writer. In 1816 he made a mark in English literature with ...
Gerard de Nerval1808, May 221824
 
18551855, Jan 26
 the nom-de-plume of the French writer, poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie. A major fi...
Charlotte Bronte1816, Apr 211846
 
 
18551855, Mar 31
 an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood...
Thomas Bailey1785, Jul 311820
 
18561856, Oct 23
 an English topographer and miscellaneous writer. In 1845-6 he became proprietor and editor of the...
Eduard Morike1804, Sep 81831
 
18561875, Jun 4
 a German Romantic poet and writer of novellas and novels. His first published work was the novel ...
Carlo Bassi18071833
 
18561856
 an Italian entomologist. Bassi wrote Description du genre Malacogaster in Guérin-Méneville's Ma...
Alexis de Tocqueville1805, Jul 291839
 
 
18561859, Apr 16
 a French political thinker and historian best known for his works Democracy in America (ap...
Robert Owen1771, May 141792
 
18571858, Nov 17
 a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement...
Delia Bacon1811, Feb 21825
 
18571859, Sep 2
 an American writer of plays and short stories and a sister of the Congregational minister Leonard...
Parley P. Pratt1807, Apr 121830
 
18571857, May 13
 an early leader of the Latter Day Saint movement whose writings became a significant early ninete...
Charles David Badham1805, Aug 271833
 
18571857, Jul 14
 an English writer, physician, entomologist, and mycologist. David Badham seems to have started hi...
John Snow1813, Mar 151837
 
18571858, Jun 16
 an English physician and a leader in the adoption of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is consi...
Abraham Jacob van der Aa1792, Dec 71839
 
 
18571857, Mar 21
 a Dutch writer best known for his dictionaries. The Aardrijkskundig Woordenboek der Nederlande...
William Allen Butler1825, Feb 201843
 
 
18571902, Sep 9
 an American lawyer and writer of poetical satires. He contributed travel writing and comic writin...
William J. Anderson1811, Jun 21855
 
 
1857unknown
 William’s mother was a free woman, but his father was a slave, belonging to a Mr. Shelton. Late...
Sergey Aksakov1791, Sep 201812
 
18581859, Apr 30
 a 19th-century Russian literary figure remembered for his semi-autobiographical tales of family l...
Charles Hamilton Smith1776, Dec 261787
 
18591859, Sep 21
 an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier, and spy. His military career bega...
Pierre Adolphe Piorry1794, Dec 311816
 
18591879, May 29
 a French physician born in Poitiers. He invented pleximetry (a method for the investigation of in...
Thomas Babington Macaulay1800, Oct 251825
 
18591859, Dec 28
 a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer; his bo...
King Oscar I of Sweden1799, Jul 41844
 
 
18591859, Jul 8
  King of Sweden and Norway from 1844 to his death. When, in August 1810, his father Jean-Baptiste...
Lucy Evelina Metcalf Akerman1816, Feb 211850
 
 
18591874, Feb 21
 an American Unitarian writer. This daughter of Thomas Metcalf was born in Wrentham, Massachusetts...
Crescenzo Alatri18251850
 
 
18591897, Feb 12
 an Italian writer; born at Rome. He was educated in the Talmud Torah of his native city, and grad...
Henry Butler Stoney18161850
 
 
18591894
 a British army officer; Major, 40th Regiment and writer.
Lewis Cass1782, Oct 91806
 
18601866, Jun 17
 an American military officer, politician, and statesman. He represented Michigan in the United St...
Elizabeth Barrett Browning1806, Mar 61838
 
 
18601861, Jun 29
 one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United S...
Franz Grillparzer1791, Jan 151811
 
18611872, Jan 21
 an Austrian writer who is chiefly known for his dramas. He also wrote the oration for Ludwig van ...
Taras Shevchenko1814, Mar 91822
 
18611861, Mar 10
 a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, as well as folklorist and ethnogra...
James H. Ward1806, Sep 251823
 
18611861, Jun 27
 the first officer of the United States Navy killed during the American Civil War. He taught cours...
Stephen P. Hill1806, Apr 171832
 
18611884, Sep 15
 a Baptist clergyman who served as Chaplain of the Senate. He was educated at Waterville College, ...
Frederick Rinehart Anspach1815, Jan1841
 
 
18611867, Sep 16
 a Lutheran clergyman and writer. A sermon delivered on the occasion of the death of Henry Clay wa...
Benjamin Paul Akers1825, Jul 101850
 
 
18611861, May 21
 Born in Saccarappa, ME. Trained on wood (Maine) and plaster casting (Boston). Wrote articles abou...
Jens Matthias Pram Kaurin1804, Nov 251858
 
 
18611863, Jul 6
 a Norwegian professor of theology, biblical translator, and Lutheran priest. He served as the Bis...
George Washington Bethune1805, Mar 181827
 
18621862, Apr 28
 a preacher-pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church. He was an outspoken Democrat in politics, opposed...
Nathaniel Hawthorne1804, Jul 41836
 
18621864, May 19
 an American novelist, Dark Romantic, and short story writer. Much of Hawthorne's writing centers ...
Samuel A. Cartwright1793, Nov 31837
 
18621863, May 2
 a physician who practiced in Mississippi and Louisiana in the antebellum United States. Cartwrigh...
John Bird Sumner1780, Feb 251848
 
18621862, Feb 6
 a bishop in the Church of England and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1848 to 1862. Sumner's numero...
Andrew Bellunknown1827
 
1863unknown
 a Scottish-born Canadian journalist. He was well educated. His work and life is well known in the...
William Makepeace Thackeray1811, Jul 181829
 
18631863, Dec 24
 an English novelist of the 19th century. He is famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanit...
Hans Christian Andersen1805, Apr 21822
 
18641875, Aug 4
 a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is...
Heinrich Barth1821, Feb 161844
 
18641865, Nov 25
 a German explorer of Africa and scholar, thought to be one of the greatest European explorers of ...
Edward Everett1794, Apr 111813
 
18651865, Jan 15
 an American politician, pastor, educator, diplomat, and orator from Massachusetts. Everett, a Whi...
Richard L. Allen1803, Oct 201833
 
18651869, Sep 22
 an American writer on agriculture. In 1842 he started the American Agriculturist in partnership w...
William Benton Clulow18021835
 
18651882, Apr 16
 an English dissenting minister, tutor and writer. Clulow was a native of Leek, Staffordshire, and...
William Gilmore Simms1806, Apr 171825
 
18661870, Jun 11
 a poet, novelist and historian from the American South. His writings achieved great prominence du...
Menachem Mendel Schneersohn1789, Sep 91831
 
18661866, Mar 17
 an Orthodox rabbi, leading 19th century posek, and the third Rebbe (spiritual leader) of the Chab...
Elizabeth Caroline Grey17981820
 
18671869
 a prolific English author of over 30 romance novels, silver fork novels, Gothic novels, sensation...
Henry Timrod1829, Dec 81848
 
18671867, Oct 7
 an American poet, often called the poet laureate of the Confederacy. He took a position with a la...
George L. Aiken1830, Dec 191852
 
18671876, Apr 27
 a nineteenth-century American playwright and actor who is best known for writing the most popular...
Antoine-Henri Jomini1779, Mar 61798
 
18691869, Mar 24
 a Swiss officer who served as a general in the French and later in the Russian service, and one o...
Stephen C. Massettunknown1840
 
1869unknown
 San Francisco's first entertainer, Stephen C. Massett, was the true Bohemian type. He was an arti...
John P. Kennedy1795, Oct 251819
 
18701870, Aug 18
 an American novelist and Whig politician who served as United States Secretary of the Navy from J...
Charles Dickens1812, Feb 71832
 
18701870, Jun 9
 an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characte...
Gorham Dummer Abbott1807, Sep 31837
 
18701874, Aug 3
 an American clergyman, educator, and author. He was a significant figure in the movement to suppl...
Henrik Reuterdahl1795, Sep 111856
 
18701870, Jun 28
 a Swedish Lutheran clergyman who served as the Lutheran Swedish Church archbishop of Uppsala from...
Mary Fairfax Somerville1780, Dec 261811
 
18721872, Nov 29
 a Scottish science writer and polymath, at a time when women's participation in science was disco...
Charles Darwin1809, Feb 121827
 
18721882, Apr 19
 an English naturalist and geologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution...
George Catlin1796, Jul 261830
 
18721872, Dec 23
 an American painter, author, and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the...
Anyos Jedlik1800, Jan 111817
 
18731895, Dec 13
 a Hungarian inventor, engineer, physicist, and Benedictine priest. He was also a member of the Hu...
Edward Bulwer-Lytton1803, May 251825
 
18731873, Jan 18
 an English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was immensely popular with the reading ...
William Lloyd Garrison1805, Dec 101830
 
18731879, May 23
 was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best kn...
Ivar Aasen1813, Aug 51841
 
18731896, Sep 23
 a Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, playwright, and poet. He is best known for having assembl...
William Cullen Bryant1794, Nov 31815
 
18741878, Jun 12
 American romantic poet, journalist and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. "Thanatopsi...
Eugene Viollet-le-Duc1814, Jan 271830
 
18741879, Sep 17
 a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings...
John Stevens Cabot Abbott1805, Sep 191834
 
18761877, Jun 17
 an American historian, pastor, and pedagogical writer. He was a voluminous writer of books on Chr...
Tom Taylor1817, Oct 191843
 
18761880, Jul 12
 an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine. He wrote ...
Dora Greenwell1821, Dec 61848
 
18761882, Mar 29
 an English poet. She published her first volume of poems in 1848 through William Pickering, after...
Pyotr Vyazemsky1792, Jul 231813
 
18771878, Nov 22
 a leading personality of the Golden Age of Russian poetry. In the 1820s Vyazemsky was the most co...
Gustave Flaubert1821, Dec 121842
 
18771880, May 8
 a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary re...
Thomas Carlyle1795, Dec 41821
 
18781881, Feb 5
 a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher. Considered one of the ...
Zachariah Allen1795, Sep 151815
 
18791882, Mar 17
 an American textile manufacturer, scientist, lawyer, writer, inventor and civil leader from Provi...
Fernan Caballero1796, Dec 241821
 
18791877, Apr 7
 the pseudonym adopted from the name of a village in the province of Ciudad Real by the Spanish no...
Jacob Abbott1803, Nov 141825
 
18791879, Oct 31
 an American writer of children's books. He was a prolific author, writing juvenile fiction, brief...
Orson Pratt1811, Sep 191831
 
18791881, Oct 3
 an American mathematician and religious leader who was an original member of the Quorum of Twelve...
Giuseppe Garibaldi1807, Jul 41833
 
18791882, Jun 2
 an Italian general, politician and nationalist who played a large role in the history of Italy. H...
Charles Reade1814, Jun 81835
 
18791884, Apr 11
 an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth. Reade began his li...
Ralph Waldo Emerson18031836
 
18791882
 an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th c...
John H. Van Evrie18141842
 
18791896
 an American physician and defender of slavery, best known as the editor of the Weekly Day Book an...
Benjamin Disraeli1804, Dec 211826
 
18801881, Apr 19
 a British politician and writer, who twice served as Prime Minister. He played a central role in ...
William Swan Plumer1802, Jul 261834
 
18801880, Oct 22
 an American clergyman, theologian and author who was recognized as an intellectual leader of the ...
Robert Tomes1817, Mar 271840
 
18801882
 American physician, diplomat and writer. Beginning to write around 1853, Tomes gradually relinqui...
Leonard Bacon1802, Feb 191825
 
18811881, Dec 24
 an American Congregational preacher and writer. He held the pulpit of the First Church New Haven ...
John William Draper1811, May 51832
 
18811882, Jan 4
 an English-American scientist, philosopher, physician, chemist, historian and photographer. He is...
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807, Feb 271824
 
18821882, Mar 24
 an American poet and educator whose works include Paul Revere's Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, and E...
Gottfried Kinkel1815, Aug 111836
 
18821882, Nov 12
 a German poet also noted for his revolutionary activities and his escape from a Prussian prison i...
Karl Marx1818, May 51836
 
18821883, Mar 14
 a philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Born in Prussia t...
Niceto de Zamacois18201846
 
18821885
 a Spanish-born Mexican historian, novelist, poet and journalist. He emigrated to Mexico in 1840. ...
Amos Bronson Alcott17991823
 
18841888
 an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways...
Thomas William Webb1807, Dec 141829
 
18851885, May 19
 a British astronomer. Through his career T. W. Webb served as a clergyman at various places inclu...
Dion Boucicault1820/22, Dec 261834
 
18851890, Sep 18
 an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. His first play, A Legend of the Devil'...
Sarah T. Bolton1814, Dec 81828
 
18861893, Aug 5
 an American poet and activist. She has been called Indiana's "pioneer poet" and is best known for...
Camilo Castelo Branco1825, Mar 161851
 
18861890, Jun
 a prolific Portuguese writer of the 19th century, having produced over 260 books (mainly novels, ...
Alexandre Dumas the Younger1824, Jul 271847
 
18871895, Nov 27
  a French writer and dramatist, best known for Camille (a.k.a. The Lady of the Camellias). He was...
James Freeman Clarke1810, Apr 41833
 
18881888, Jun 8
 an American theologian and author. In 1839 he returned to Boston where he and his friends establi...
Theodore Sedgwick Fay1807, Feb 101828
 
18891898, Nov 17
 a writer from the United States who spent much of his life in Germany. Fay initially worked as a ...
John Ruskin1819, Feb 81829
 
18891900, Jan 20
 the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, water...
Robert Browning1812, May 71833
 
18891889, Dec 12
 an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremo...
James Russell Lowell1819, Feb 221840
 
18891891, Aug 12
 an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets...
Henry Walter Bates1825, Feb 81843
 
18891892, Feb 16
 an English naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. H...
Thomas Woolner1825, Dec 171843
 
18891892, Oct 7
 an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood...
Napoleon Aubin1812, Nov 91829
 
18901890, Jun 12
 a Canadian journalist, publisher, playwright, and scientist. Born in Geneva, Aubin sailed to the ...
Richard Burton1821, Mar 191842
 
18901890, Oct 20
 a British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologi...
Alfred, Lord Tennyson18091827
 
18911892
  Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one...
Samuel Baker1821, Jun 81846
 
18911893, Dec 30
 a British explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He a...
John Greenleaf Whittier1807, Dec 171826
 
18921892, Sep 7
 an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently...
Francis Parkman Jr.1823, Sep 161846
 
18921893, Nov 8
 an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky...
William L. Manly1820, Apr 61849
 
18941903, Feb 5
 an American pioneer of the mid-19th century. He was first a fur hunter, a guide of Westward bound...
Daniel Kirkwood1814, Sep 271839
 
18951895, Jun 11
 an American astronomer. Kirkwood was born in Harford County, Maryland to John and Agnes (née Hop...
Oluf Andreas Aabel1825, Oct 91847
 
18951895, Dec 24
 a Norwegian priest and writer. He translated Georg Benedikt Winer's Grammatik des neutestament...
Frederick Law Olmsted1822, Apr 261850
 
18951903, Aug 28
 an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is popul...
John Greenleaf Adams18101831
 
18971897
 co-editor with Dr. E.H. Chapin of the Universalist Hymns for Christian Devotion and alone for the...
George Dod Armstrong1813, Sep 151832
 
18991899, May 11
 a Presbyterian minister and author born in Mendham, New Jersey. In 1855 his family was nearly des...
Philip James Bailey1816, Apr 221834
 
19011902, Sep 6
 an English Spasmodic poet, best known as the author of his one voluminous poem, Festus, fi...
William Powell Frith1819, Jan 191838
 
19021909, Nov 9
  an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the V...
Elizabeth Chase Allen1832, Oct 91845
 
19021911, Aug 7
 an American author, journalist and poet. She began to write at the age of fifteen, under the pen ...
Andrew Graham1815, Apr 81848
 
19031907, Nov 5
 an Irish astronomer/computer. He discovered the asteroid 9 Metis in 1848 whilst employed at Markr...
Leo Tolstoy1828, Aug 281852
 
19101910, Nov 7
 a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He first achieved li...
Fanny Crosby1820, Mar 241843
 
19151915, Feb 12
 an American mission worker, poet, lyricist, and composer. A member of the Sixth Avenue Bible Bapt...
Rebecca Hammond Lard1772, Mar 71786
 
1941855, Sep 28
 called by some critics "the first poet in Indiana". Her poetry reflects on the lives of the early...
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