The constant abrasion and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth.
Henry David ThoreauSo long as a man is faithful to himself, everything is in his favor, government, society, the very sun, moon, and stars.
Henry David ThoreauIt must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses; and the brute degenerates in man's society.
Henry David ThoreauBe not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested.
Henry David ThoreauThe hounding of a dog pursuing a fox or other animal in the horizon may have first suggested the notes of the hunting-horn to alternate with and relieve the lungs of the dog. This natural bugle long resounded in the woods of the ancient world before the horn was invented.
Henry David ThoreauA worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.
Henry David ThoreauI love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence like pulp, - tadpoles which herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be made of it.
Henry David ThoreauWriting may be either the record of a deed or a deed. It is nobler when it is a deed.
Henry David ThoreauIf the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.
Henry David ThoreauThey will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,--how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.
Henry David ThoreauThe poet is he who can write some pure mythology today without the aid of posterity.
Henry David ThoreauAnd pray what more can a reasonable man desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than a sufficient number of ears of green sweet corn boiled, with the addition of salt?
Henry David ThoreauThe man of genius knows what he is aiming at; nobody else knows. And he alone knows when something comes between him and his object. In the course of generations, however, men will excuse you for not doing as they do, if you will bring enough to pass in your own way.
Henry David ThoreauIt is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David ThoreauEvery 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.
Henry David ThoreauContinued traveling is far from productive. It begins with wearing away the soles of the shoes, and making the feet sore, and erelong it will wear a man clean up, after making his heart sore into the bargain. I have observed that the afterlife of those who have traveled much is very pathetic.
Henry David ThoreauWhat shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!
Henry David ThoreauThe front aspect of great thoughts can only be enjoyed by those who stand on the side whence they arrive.
Henry David ThoreauTo make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
Henry David ThoreauIt is true, these Roman Catholics, priests and all, impress me as a people who have fallen far behind the significance of their symbols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a church and were trying to bethink himself. Nevertheless, they are capable of reverence; but we Yankees are a people in whom this sentiment has nearly died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink ourselves even as oxen.
Henry David ThoreauThe intercourse of the sexes, I have dreamed, is incredibly beautiful, too fair to be remembered. I have had thoughts about it, but they are among the most fleeting and irrecoverable in my experience.
Henry David ThoreauMany men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David ThoreauThere is all the poetry in the world in a name. It is a poem which the mass of men hear and read. What is poetry in the common sense, but a hearing of such jingling names? I want nothing better than a good word. The name of a thing may easily be more than the thing itself to me.
Henry David ThoreauI love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise til noon, rapt in a revery.
Henry David ThoreauThe 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.
Henry David ThoreauThey who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.
Henry David ThoreauBread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any unmixed and heroic joy.
Henry David ThoreauSo easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.
Henry David ThoreauThe outward is only the outside of that which is within. Men are not concealed under habits, but are revealed by them; they are their true clothes.
Henry David ThoreauSomehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause - nor any charter of immunities and rights.
Henry David Thoreau