Henry David Thoreau Quotes

In a pure society, the subject of marriage would not be so often avoided,--from shame and not from reverence, winked out of sight,and hinted at only; but treated naturally and simply,--perhaps simply avoided like the kindred mysteries. If it cannot be spoken of for shame, how can it be acted of? But, doubtless, there is far more purity, as well as more impurity, than is apparent.

I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.

It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.

We saw one school-house in our walk, and listened to the sounds which issued from it; but it appeared like a place where the process, not of enlightening, but of obfuscating the mind was going on, and the pupils received only so much light as could penetrate the shadow of the Catholic church.

Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.

As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.

In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.

How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are!

The world rests on principles.

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion.

If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few marriages such as we witness would ever have taken place!

While the Governor, and the Mayor, and countless officers of the Commonwealth are at large, the champions of liberty are imprisoned.

Beside some philosophers of larger vision, Carlyle stands like an honest, half-despairing boy, grasping at some details only of their world systems.

To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine...So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain, running in the face of it.

The press is, almost without exception, corrupt.

There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains itsmaxims. It has no temple, nor even a solitary column. There goes a rumor that the earth is inhabited, but the shipwrecked mariner has not seen a footprint on the shore. The hunter has found only fragments of pottery and the monuments of inhabitants.

But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself.

The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow,-one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.

There are as many strata at different levels of life as there are leaves in a book. When on the higher levels we can remember the lower levels, but when on the lower we cannot remember the higher.

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution - such call I good books.

I am from time to time congratulating myself on my general want of success as a lecturer; apparent want of success, but is it nota real triumph? I do my work clean as I go along, and they will not be likely to want me anywhere again. So there is no danger of my repeating myself, and getting to a barrel of sermons, which you must upset, and begin again with.

Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.

We are independent of the change we detect. The longer the lever, the less perceptible its motion. It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero then will know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely; we shall sooner overtake the dawn by remaining here than by hurrying over the hills of the west.

As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.

When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?

Work your vein till it is exhausted, or conducts you to a broader one.

Why should we be startled by death? Life is a constant putting off of the mortal coil - coat, cuticle, flesh and bones, all old clothes.

I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper.

I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I might go a- fishing. That's the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned.

I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect...always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished.

Unpremeditated music is the true gauge which measures the current of our thoughts; the very undertow of our life's stream.

Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

Many old people receive pensions for no other reason, it seems to me, but as a compensation for having lived a long time ago.

Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them.

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man.

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.

You cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that which shocks you.

I stand in awe of my body.

It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdrawand stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot one with,--the dollar is innocent,--but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make what use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases.

One little bird not larger than a sparrow, it may have been a Phalarope, would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as the breakers in theirs.

Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as if it were redeemed. When the desire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly elevated, and so far better already.

I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased imagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone.

I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable but positive hindrances to our progress. Our life is frittered away by detail. I say let your affairs be as two or three, not a hundred or a thousand. And keep your accounts on your thumb nail.