Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.
Henry David ThoreauSome show their kindness to the poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed themselves there?
Henry David ThoreauIf the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.
Henry David ThoreauIf I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.
Henry David ThoreauThe three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest.
Henry David ThoreauFor many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.
Henry David ThoreauI never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud-puddle; he comes out honor-bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much leisure.
Henry David ThoreauGardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.
Henry David ThoreauThere is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.
Henry David ThoreauEspecially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of humor to render it light and digestible.
Henry David ThoreauHistory has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning ofthings, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,--when did burdock and plantain sprout first?
Henry David ThoreauThe fishermen say that the "thundering of the pond" scares the fishes and prevents their biting.
Henry David ThoreauCan we not do without the society of our gossip a little while, - have our own thoughts to cheer us?
Henry David ThoreauThe church is a sort of hospital for men's souls, and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. Those who are taken into it live like pensioners in their Retreat or Sailors' Snug Harbor, where you may see a row of religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather.
Henry David ThoreauThe most attractive sentences are, perhaps, not the wisest, but the surest and roundest. They are spoken firmly and conclusively,as if the speaker had a right to know what he says, and if not wise, they have at least been well learned.
Henry David ThoreauA wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.
Henry David ThoreauThe philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast- off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.
Henry David ThoreauIn the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
Henry David ThoreauWhen the true criminals are running around free, the only honorable place for a decent human being is in prisons.
Henry David ThoreauPriests and physicians should never look one another in the face. They have no common ground, nor is there any to mediate betweenthem. When the one comes, the other goes. They could not come together without laughter, or a significant silence, for the one's profession is a satire on the other's, and either's success would be the other's failure.
Henry David ThoreauWe now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.
Henry David ThoreauI could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It would be too cruel.
Henry David ThoreauWhen a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.
Henry David ThoreauDo what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.
Henry David ThoreauA name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.
Henry David ThoreauI walk out into a nature such as the old prophets and poets Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may name it America, but it is not America. Neither Americus Vespucius, nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer account of it in Mythology than in any history of America so called that I have seen.
Henry David ThoreauWe could not help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. His words and actions presume alwaysa crisis near at hand, but she is forever silent and unpretending.
Henry David ThoreauAs for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any. We can tolerate all philosophies.... It is the attitude of these men, more than any communication which they make, that attracts us.
Henry David ThoreauIt is not enough that we are truthful; we must cherish and carry out high purposes to be truthful about.
Henry David ThoreauWe soon get through with Nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy. The merest child which has rambled into a copsewood dreams of a wildness so wild and strange and inexhaustible as Nature can never show him.
Henry David ThoreauIt becomes the moralist, too, to inquire what man might do to improve and beautify the system; what to make the stars shine more brightly, the sun more cheery and joyous, the moon more placid and content.
Henry David Thoreau