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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 100

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Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.

Many college text-books, which were a weariness and stumbling-block when I studied, I have since read a little with pleasure and profit.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Block, Book
Henry David Thoreau (1906). “Journal: Dec. 1, 1853-Aug. 31, 1854”

Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. Why, nature is but another name for health.

Henry David Thoreau
Names, Moments, Wells
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.119, Courier Corporation

I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth.

Henry David Thoreau
Humility, Devil, Speak
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.32, Cosimo, Inc.

I 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 Thoreau
Men, Thinking, Herds
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.36, Courier Corporation

October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world. As fruits and leaves and the day itself acquire a bright tint just before they fall, so the year near its setting. October is its sunset sky; November the later twilight.

Henry David Thoreau
Fall, Twilight, Sunset
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.178, Rowman & Littlefield

Let your walks now be a little more adventurous.

Henry David Thoreau
Littles, Adventurous, Walks
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.202, Simon and Schuster

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.

Henry David Thoreau
Spiritual, Nature, Serenity
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.20, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible; I would have each one be very careful to find out and preserve his own way.

Henry David Thoreau
Thinking, Desire, Different

A 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 Thoreau
Wise, Wisdom, Men
Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.6, Hayes Barton Press

I was born upon thy bank, river, My blood flows in thy stream, And thou meanderest forever, At the bottom of my dream.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Blood, Rivers
Henry David Thoreau, John C. Broderick, Robert Sattelmeyer (1981). “Journal”, p.5, Princeton University Press

In the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages but in vain-I find no sea room-but in great souls I sail before the wind without a watch, and never reach the shore.

Henry David Thoreau
Wind, Sea, Soul
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.10, Heron Dance Press

Not secondary to the sun, she gives us his blaze again, Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day... In Heaven queen she is among the spheres; She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure.

Henry David Thoreau
Queens, Moon, Flames
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.247, Simon and Schuster

We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Travel, Ocean
Henry David Thoreau (1866). “Cape Cod”, p.174

This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

Henry David Thoreau
Flower, Men, Bird
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Walden; Or, Life in the Woods”, p.73, Courier Corporation

You can hardly convince a man of error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grand-children may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more, to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.

Henry David Thoreau
Children, Science, Reflection
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature – 6 Book Collection (Illustrated): Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada & Canoeing in the Wilderness - North American Highlands Series”, p.47, e-artnow

We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has as yet been sung. The ancients had a juster notion of their poetic value than we. The most distinct and beautiful statements of any truth must take at last the mathematical form. We might so simplify the rules of moral philosophy, as well as of arithmetic, that one formula would express them both.

Henry David Thoreau
Beauty, Beautiful, Art
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Material Faith: Thoreau on Science”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Important, Tuition
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.39, Graphic Arts Books

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.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, School, Light
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Yankee in Canada”, p.35, Graphic Arts Books

Surely one may as profitably be soaked in the juices of a swamp for one day as pick his way dry-shod over sand. Cold and damp ? are they not as rich experience as warmth and dryness?

Henry David Thoreau
One Day, Experience, Juice
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.661, Simon and Schuster

I think that no experience which I have today comes up to, or is comparable with, the experiences of my boyhood.

Henry David Thoreau
Thinking, Experience, Today
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.47, Courier Corporation

It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver.

Henry David Thoreau
Freedom, Southern, Slave
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.14

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George the Fourth and continue the slaves of prejudice? What is it to be born free and equal, and not to live? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

Henry David Thoreau
Kings, Freedom, Mean
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.50, David M Gross

What great interval is there between him who is caught in Africa and made a plantation slave of in the South, and him who is caught in New England and made a Unitarian minister of?

Henry David Thoreau
Freedom, England, Slave
Henry David Thoreau (1906). “Journal: Aug. 16, 1856-Aug. 7, 1857”

I love my friends very much, but I find that it is of no use to go to see them. I hate them commonly when I am near them. They belie themselves and deny me continually.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Hate, Use
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Thoreau's Book of Quotations”, p.27, Courier Corporation

I have never met with a friend who furnished me sea-room. I have only tacked a few times and come to anchor - not sailed - made no voyage, carried no venture.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Anchors, Sea
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.163, Yale University Press

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