What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary?
Henry David ThoreauA man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of nature by being buried in it.
Henry David ThoreauI would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way.
Henry David ThoreauThis life we live is a strange dream, and I don't believe at all any account men give of it.
Henry David ThoreauAny man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished; but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution.
Henry David ThoreauTo speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, andflatter and study effect only more finely than the rest.
Henry David ThoreauI have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.
Henry David ThoreauBut, on more accounts than one, I had had enough of moose-hunting. I had not come to the woods for this purpose, nor had I foreseen it, though I had been willing to learn how the Indian manvred; but one moose killed was as good, if not as bad, as a dozen.
Henry David ThoreauThe coward wants resolution, which the brave man can do without. He recognizes no faith above a creed, thinking this straw by which he is moored does him good service, because his sheet anchor does not drag.
Henry David ThoreauTruth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.
Henry David ThoreauA true account of the actual is the rarest poetry, for common sense always takes a hasty and superficial view.
Henry David ThoreauWhen the chopper would praise a pine, he will commonly tell you that the one he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen stood on its stump; as if that were what the pine had grown for, to become the footstool of oxen.
Henry David ThoreauIndeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface,not concluded in the appendix. Even Virgil's poetry serves a very different use to me today from what it did to his contemporaries. It has often an acquired and accidental value merely, proving that man is still man in the world.
Henry David ThoreauNo face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.
Henry David ThoreauI am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. The former are so much the freer.
Henry David ThoreauI grow savager and savager every day, as if fed on raw meat, and my tameness is only the repose of untamableness. I dream of looking abroad summer and winter, with free gaze, from some mountain-side,... to be nature looking into nature with such easy sympathy as the blue-eyed grass in the meadow looks in the face of the sky. From some such recess I would put forth sublime thoughts daily, as the plant puts forth leaves.
Henry David ThoreauBy what a delicate and far-stretched contribution every island is made! What an enterprise of nature thus to lay the foundations of and to build up the future continent, of golden and silver sands and the ruins of forests, with ant-like industry.
Henry David ThoreauOne cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense.
Henry David ThoreauGenerally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
Henry David ThoreauThe New Testament is remarkable for its pure morality; the best of the Hindoo Scripture, for its pure intellectuality. The readeris nowhere raised into and sustained in a higher, purer, or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagvat-Geeta.... It is unquestionably one of the noblest and most sacred scriptures which have come down to us.
Henry David ThoreauHow can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again.
Henry David ThoreauThe customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.
Henry David ThoreauYet the New Testament treats of man and man's so-called spiritual affairs too exclusively, and is too constantly moral and personal, to alone content me, who am not interested solely in man's religious or moral nature, or in man even.
Henry David ThoreauThe inhabitants of earth behold commonly but the dark and shadowy under side of heaven's pavement; it is only when seen at a favorable angle in the horizon, morning or evening, that some faint streaks of the rich lining of the clouds are revealed.
Henry David ThoreauThe discoveries which we make abroad are special and particular; those which we make at home are general and significant. The further off, the nearer the surface. The nearer home, the deeper.
Henry David ThoreauI am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.
Henry David ThoreauWe are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper.At any meeting of politicianshow impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! how pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution!
Henry David ThoreauIt is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time.
Henry David ThoreauThe frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact.
Henry David ThoreauWe say justly that the weak person is flat, for, like all flat substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is, on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides all the way through life.... But the brave man is a perfect sphere, which cannot fall on its flat side and is equally strong every way.
Henry David ThoreauI thrive best on solitude. If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it.
Henry David ThoreauWhen I visit again some haunt of my youth, I am glad to find that nature wears so well. The landscape is indeed something real, and solid, and sincere, and I have not put my foot through it yet.
Henry David ThoreauAll the events which make the annals of the nations are but the shadows of our private experiences.
Henry David ThoreauA cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself.
Henry David ThoreauWhat is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct. Men do not, after all, love their Friends greatly. I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other's presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man.
Henry David Thoreau