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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 20

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Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits.

Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits.

Henry David Thoreau
Apples, Fruit
Henry David Thoreau (1862). “Wild Apples”, p.11, Applewood Books

Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.

Henry David Thoreau
Fear, Anticipation, Mental Health
See Francis Bacon 7; Montaigne 4; Franklin Roosevelt 6; Wellington 3

What is sour in the house a bracing walk in the woods makes sweet.

Henry David Thoreau
Sweet, House, Woods

For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost...Not 'til we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.

Henry David Thoreau
Eye, Men, Needs

As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period of my life; I mean that I had some.

Henry David Thoreau
Mean, Men, Solitude
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.87, Simon and Schuster

Simplicity is the law of nature for men as well as for flowers.

Henry David Thoreau
Flower, Men, Law
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Green Thoreau: America's First Environmentalist on Technology, Possessions, Livelihood, and More”, p.72, New World Library

Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. 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.

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

The Library is a wilderness of books.

Henry David Thoreau
Book, Reading, Library
Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.84, Courier Corporation

Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity.

Henry David Thoreau
Serenity, Enthusiasm
Henry David Thoreau, John C. Broderick, Robert Sattelmeyer (1981). “Journal”, p.29, Princeton University Press

Lose the world, get lost in it, and find your soul.

Henry David Thoreau
Soul, World, Lost

Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

Henry David Thoreau
Humility, Light, Darkness
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.212, Cosimo, Inc.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

Henry David Thoreau
Strong, Animal, Humanity
Journal, 11 Nov. 1850

Do you know how the naturalist learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, of beasts, of reptiles, of fishes, of the rivers and the sea? When he goes into the woods the birds fly before him and he finds none; when he goes to the river bank, the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. His secret is patience; he sits down, and sits still; he is a statue; he is a log.

Henry David Thoreau
Sea, Rivers, Bird

I am not afraid of praise, for I have practiced it on myself.

Henry David Thoreau
Praise, Not Afraid
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1810, Delphi Classics

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

Henry David Thoreau
Best Friend, I Miss You, Missing You
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Thoreau's Book of Quotations”, p.26, Courier Corporation

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Winter, Eight
'Walden' (1854) 'Winter Visitors'

Christianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willows, and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has dreamed a sad dream, and does not yet welcome the morning with joy. The mother tells her falsehoods to her child, but, thank heaven, the child does not grow up in its parent's shadow. Our mother's faith has not grown with her experience. Her experience has been too much for her. The lesson of life was too hard for her to learn.

Henry David Thoreau
Mother, Dream, Song
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.71, Delphi Classics

If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the devil's angels.

Henry David Thoreau
Angel, Men, Experience
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.220, Graphic Arts Books

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Thinking, Voting
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man: wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morningwith a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America.

Henry David Thoreau
Music, Wise, Drinking
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.183, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Improve every opportunity to be melancholy.

Henry David Thoreau
Opportunity, Melancholy
Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.202, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.

Henry David Thoreau
Success, Half, Life Is

I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.

Henry David Thoreau
Class, Mind, Gold
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.20, Graphic Arts Books

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world.

Henry David Thoreau
Death, Fate, Bereavement
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2009, Delphi Classics

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

Henry David Thoreau
Time, Integrity, Vices
Henry David Thoreau (1975). “Early Essays and Miscellanies”, p.224, Princeton University Press

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