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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 21

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In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake.

In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Real, Character
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden and Other Writings”, p.79, Bantam Classics

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Inspirational, Monday
Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.106, Cambridge University Press

A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.

Henry David Thoreau
Beautiful, Nature, Eye
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.35, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.

Henry David Thoreau
Cutting, Men, House
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.3, 谷月社

The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild, and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Names, West
"Walking" (1862)

I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government

Henry David Thoreau
Freedom, Government, Justice
Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.2, Cambridge University Press

The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear sky.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Wisest Man, Sky
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.490, Simon and Schuster

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Men, Risk
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.100, Cosimo, Inc.

It is tranquil people who accomplish much.

Henry David Thoreau
People, Tranquility, Accomplish

A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Righteous Man, Swamps
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.403, Penguin

Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Men, Flesh And Blood
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.159, Xist Publishing

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If 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 Thoreau
Giving Up, War, Men

Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Miracle, Over You
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.36, Courier Corporation

You never gain something but that you lose something.

Henry David Thoreau
Gains, Loses

We believe that the possibility of the future far exceeds the accomplishment of the past. We review the past with the common sense, but we anticipate the future with transcendental senses. In our sanest moments we find ourselves naturally expecting or prepared for far greater changes than any which we have experienced within the period of distinct memory, only to be paralleled by experiences which are forgotten.

Henry David Thoreau
Memories, Believe, Past
Henry David Thoreau (1968). “Reflections at Walden: Selected Writings”

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?

Henry David Thoreau
Government, Giving, Haste
Civil Disobedience (1849)

Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.

Henry David Thoreau
Wall, Work, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.283, North Point Press

Nature doth thus kindly heal every wound. By the mediation of a thousand little mosses and fungi, the most unsightly objects become radiant of beauty. There seem to be two sides of this world, presented us at different times, as we see things in growth or dissolution, in life or death. And seen with the eye of the poet, as God sees them, all things are alive and beautiful.

Henry David Thoreau
Beautiful, Eye, Two Sides

Friendship takes place between those who have an affinity for one another, and is a perfectly natural and inevitable result. No professions nor advances will avail.... It is a drama in which the parties have no part to act.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Drama, Party
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.112, Penguin

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Henry David Thoreau
Believe, Men, Politics
Civil Disobedience (1849) See Ralph Waldo Emerson 29; O'Sullivan 1; Shipley 1

The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.

Henry David Thoreau
Writing, Hands, Given
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.213, Courier Corporation

We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

Henry David Thoreau
Sea, Land, Environmental
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Thoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World”, p.38, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

Probably if our lives were more conformed to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against her heats and colds, but findher our constant nurse and friend, as do plants and quadrupeds.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Nurse, Needs
Henry David Thoreau (2010). “Wild Apples and Other Natural History Essays”, p.45, University of Georgia Press

Men talk of freedom! How many are free to think? Free from fear, from perturbation, from prejudice? Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand are perfect slaves.

Henry David Thoreau
Freedom, Men, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.353, Yale University Press

While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?

Henry David Thoreau
Knowledge, Brain, Potatoes
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.331, Penguin

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