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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 28

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I love the broad margin to my life.

I love the broad margin to my life.

Henry David Thoreau
Happiness, Life Happiness, Broads

Asked whether or not he believed in an afterlife, Thoreau quipped, "One world at a time."

Henry David Thoreau
Afterlife, World, Earth

In an ancient and dead language, any recognition of living nature attracts us. These are such sentences as were written while grass grew and water ran. It is no small recommendation when a book will stand the test of mere unobstructed sunshine and daylight.

Henry David Thoreau
Book, Sunshine, Water
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.80, Delphi Classics

Let a slight snow come and cover the earth, and the tracks of men will show how little the woods and fields are frequented.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Snow, Track
Henry David Thoreau (1962). “Journal”

With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits, all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers, for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike.

Henry David Thoreau
Destiny, Men, Interesting
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.207, Penguin

He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Exaggeration, Qualified
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.95, Simon and Schuster

We can conceive of nothing more fair than something which we have experienced.

Henry David Thoreau
Imagination, Experience, Fairs
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.269, Xist Publishing

The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secrets of things.

Henry David Thoreau
Knowledge, Secret, Rift
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.50, BookBaby

Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Fighting, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.59, Cosimo, Inc.

It would be no reproach to a philosopher, that he knew the future better than the past, or even than the present. It is better worth knowing.

Henry David Thoreau
Future, Past, Knowing
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.281, Simon and Schuster

Man needs to know but little more than a lobster in order to catch him in his traps.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Order, Fishing
Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.234, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.

Henry David Thoreau
Doctors, Solitude, Suffering
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1861, Delphi Classics

I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake,I pray?

Henry David Thoreau
Lonely, Lakes, Laughing
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.89, Cosimo, Inc.

Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.

Henry David Thoreau
Knowledge, Sleep, Men
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Uncommon Learning: Thoreau on Education”, p.37, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

He who eats the fruit should at least plant the seed; ay, if possible, a better seed than that whose fruit he has enjoyed.

Henry David Thoreau
Fruit, Morality, Plant
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.8, Yale University Press

I did not know that mankind was suffering for want of gold.

Henry David Thoreau
Suffering, Gold, Want
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.79, Rowman & Littlefield

Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Stars, Real
Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.129, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be.

Henry David Thoreau
Kindness, Character, Real Friends
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.259, Princeton University Press

I do not know how to distinguish between waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?

Henry David Thoreau
Funny, Life, Dream
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2848, Delphi Classics

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Mistake, Ignorance
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.156, Penguin

It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner and thinner until there is none at all. …We are not the less to aim at the summits though the multitude does not ascend them.

Henry David Thoreau
Doe, Soar, Aim
Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865). “Letters to Various Persons”, p.139

Why should we be startled by death? Life is a constant putting off of the mortal coil - coat, cuticle, flesh and bones, all old clothes.

Henry David Thoreau
Clothes, Coats, Flesh
Henry David Thoreau, John C. Broderick, Robert Sattelmeyer (1981). “Journal”, p.211, Princeton University Press

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.

Henry David Thoreau
Trust, Thinking, Care
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.17, Graphic Arts Books

He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Knowledge, Men
Henry David Thoreau, Michael McCurdy, Terry Tempest Williams (2010). “Walden”, p.118, Shambhala Publications

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

Henry David Thoreau
Fashion, War, Usual
Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.16, Hayes Barton Press

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