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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 24

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The mode of clearing and planting is to fell the trees, and burn once what will burn, then cut them up into suitable lengths, rollinto heaps, and burn again; then, with a hoe, plant potatoes where you can come at the

The mode of clearing and planting is to fell the trees, and burn once what will burn, then cut them up into suitable lengths, rollinto heaps, and burn again; then, with a hoe, plant potatoes where you can come at the ground between the stumps and charred logs; for a first crop the ashes suffice for manure, and no hoeing being necessary the first year. In the fall, cut, roll, and burn again, and so on, till the land is cleared; and soon it is ready for grain, and to be laid down.

Henry David Thoreau
Fall, Cutting, Years
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods”, p.12, Graphic Arts Books

A 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 Thoreau
Summer, Travel, Evil
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.217, Xist Publishing

Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Men, Alive
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.11, 谷月社

As for health, consider yourself well.

Henry David Thoreau
Health, Optimism, Wells
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.363, Penguin

The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body, in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes up someair in a spacious apartment, and warms that.... Thus he goes a step or two beyond instinct, and saves a little time for the fine arts.

Henry David Thoreau
Art, Men, Animal
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.152, Graphic Arts Books

And now that we have returned to the desultory life of the plain, let us endeavor to import a little of that mountain grandeur into it. We will remember within what walls we lie, and understand that this level life too has its summit, and why from the mountain-top the deepest valleys have a tinge of blue; that there is elevation in every hour, as no part of the earth is so low that the heavens may not be seen from, and we have only to stand on the summit of our hour to command an uninterrupted horizon.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Wall, Lying
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.103, Rowman & Littlefield

Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climbs, and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I read it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night.

Henry David Thoreau
Summer, Teaching, Night
"Explore Hinduism". Book by Bansi Pandit, p. 21, 2005.

I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which these things would be by me unavoidable.

Henry David Thoreau
Wish, Would Be, Circumstances
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.250, Graphic Arts Books

This whole earth in which we inhabit is but a point is space.

Henry David Thoreau
Space, Earth, Whole
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.97, Xist Publishing

Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten.

Henry David Thoreau
Prayer, Truth, Firsts
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.514, Delphi Classics

What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

Henry David Thoreau
Mean, Political, Moral Freedom
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.8, David M Gross

America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral tyrant. Now that the republic--the res- publica--has been settled, it is time to look after the res- privata,--the private state,--to see, as the Roman Senate charged its consuls, "ne quid res-PRIVATA detrimenti caperet," that the private state receive no detriment.

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

One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make the bones with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying himself with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

Henry David Thoreau
Philosophical, Animal, Oxen

The way you spend Christmas is far more important than how much.

Henry David Thoreau
Christmas, Important, Way

If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard, this makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects.

Henry David Thoreau
Children, Men, Liberty
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.82, Penguin

As I love nature, as I love singing birds...I love thee, my friend.

Henry David Thoreau
Bird, Singing, Thee

I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary wealth, I have been nailed dawn to this my native region so long and steadily, and made to study and love this spot of earth more and more. What would signify in comparison a thin and diffused love and knowledge of the whole earth instead, got by wandering? The traveler's is but a barren and comfortless condition. Wealth will not buy a man a home in nature-house nor farm there. The man of business does not by his business earn a residence in nature, but is denaturalized rather.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Kindness, Home

Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as are associated with one's native place. She is most significant to a lover. A lover of Nature is preeminently a lover of man. If I have no friend, what is Nature to me? She ceases to be morally significant. . .

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Men, No Friends
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.11, Heron Dance Press

Faith, indeed, is all the reform that is needed; it is itself a reform.

Henry David Thoreau
Faith, Reform, Needed
Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “A Yankee in Canada: With Anti-slavery and Reform Papers”, p.201

Others - as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders - serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few - as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men - serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part.

Henry David Thoreau
God, Hero, Men
Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.3, Cambridge University Press

Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Hate, Literature
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.9, Heron Dance Press

Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay outdoors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having an instinct for it...At last we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are domestic in more senses than we think.

Henry David Thoreau
Horse, Children, Thinking

I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Thinking, Perfect
"Civil Disobedience". Book by Henry David Thoreau, 1849.

I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.

Henry David Thoreau
Needs, Palaces, Need You

As for the tenets of the Brahmans, we are not so much concerned to know what doctrines they held, as that they were held by any. We can tolerate all philosophies.... It is the attitude of these men, more than any communication which they make, that attracts us.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Attitude, Philosophy
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.547, Simon and Schuster

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