Did Henry David Thoreau say “Our life is frittered away by detail”?
SAPIR 861 · QUOTE CHECK
Did Henry David Thoreau say “Our life is frittered away by detail”?
Found word for word. Yes. The text appears in works attributed to Henry David Thoreau. Source and location below.
… e pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man …
Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience — Henry David Thoreau, ¶191 · Public domain (US), Project Gutenberg #205 · source
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (WLC), CC BY 4.0