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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 103

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The past is only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on which our idea of heroism is painted, and so, in one sense, the dim prospectus of our future field.

The past is only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on which our idea of heroism is painted, and so, in one sense, the dim prospectus of our future field.

Henry David Thoreau
Future, Past, Ideas
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.655, Simon and Schuster

I am never rich in money, and I am never meanly poor.

Henry David Thoreau
Wealth, Rich, Poor
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.122, Penguin

Be not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested.

Henry David Thoreau
May, Way, Poverty
Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865). “Letters to Various Persons”, p.52

Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savagestands on the unelastic plank of famine.

Henry David Thoreau
Civilization, Vaults, Economics
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.21, Cosimo, Inc.

The world is a strange place for a playhouse to stand within it.

Henry David Thoreau
Strange Places, World, Strange
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.76

In our daily intercourse with men, our nobler faculties are dormant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the compliment to expect nobleness from us. Though we have gold to give, they demand only copper.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Men, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.111, Penguin

Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.

Henry David Thoreau
Lying, Character, Vices
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.222, Xist Publishing

When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance?

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Soul, Shadow
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.373

The more supple vagabond, too, is sure to appear on the least rumor of such a gathering, and the next day to disappear, and go into his hole like the seventeen-year locust, in an ever-shabby coat, though finer than the farmer's best, yet never dressed.... He especially is the creature of the occasion. He empties both his pockets and his character into the stream, and swims in such a day. He dearly loves the social slush. There is no reserve of soberness in him.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Years, Next Day
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.241, Xist Publishing

White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light.... They are too pure to have a market value;they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters are they! We never learned meanness of them.

Henry David Thoreau
Beautiful, Character, Lakes
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience: Top American Literary”, p.124, 谷月社

Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Children, Spring
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.399, Simon and Schuster

If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man,--and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,--it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

Henry David Thoreau
Wise, Running, Real
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.

Henry David Thoreau
Discovery, Law, Unfortunate
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.670, Modern Library

Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.

Henry David Thoreau
Spring, Blow, Length
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.226, Graphic Arts Books

There is no treatment for adore, but to love far more.

Henry David Thoreau
Treatment, Adore

When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Law, Clash

I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not truly lived.

Henry David Thoreau
Wish, Teach, Dies

When the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him... a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Numbers, House
Walden ch. 2 (1854)

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.

Henry David Thoreau
Children, School, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau (1962). “Journal”

A simple woman down in Tyngsborough, at whose house I once stopped to get a draught of water, when I said, recognizing the bucket, that I had stopped there nine years before for the same purpose, asked if I was not a traveler, supposing that I had been traveling ever since, and had now come round again.

Henry David Thoreau
Simple, Years, Supposing That
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.665, Simon and Schuster

All endeavour calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.

Henry David Thoreau
Toil, Shapes, Lasts

There are various tough problems yet to solve, and we must shift to live, betwixt spirit and matter, such a human life as we can.

Henry David Thoreau
Matter, Spirit, Tough
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.96, Penguin

He who parades his virtues seldom leads the parade. He who puts up with insult invites injury. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present.

Henry David Thoreau
Relaxation, Aimless Life, Insult

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

Henry David Thoreau
Sorry, Apology, Men
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.128, Courier Corporation

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

Henry David Thoreau
Stress, Fiber, Conflict

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