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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 47

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I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud-puddle; he comes out honor-bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much leisure.

I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud-puddle; he comes out honor-bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much leisure.

Henry David Thoreau
Optimism, Honor, Storm
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Collected Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated): Philosophical and Autobiographical Books, Essays, Poetry, Translations, Biographies & Letters: Walden, Civil Disobedience, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, Slavery in Massachusetts, Walking…”, p.1735, e-artnow

The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel.

Henry David Thoreau
Optimism, Energy, Globes
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.28, Simon and Schuster

Compared with this simple, fibrous life, our civilized history appears the chronicle of debility, of fashion, and the arts of luxury. But the civilized man misses no real refinement in the poetry of the rudest era. It reminds him that civilization does but dress men. It makes shoes, but it does not toughen the soles of the feet. It makes cloth of finer texture, but it does not touch the skin. Inside the civilized man stands the savage still in the place of honor. We are those blue-eyed, yellow-haired Saxons, those slender, dark-haired Normans.

Henry David Thoreau
Fashion, Art, Real
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature – 6 Book Collection (Illustrated): Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada & Canoeing in the Wilderness - North American Highlands Series”, p.257, e-artnow

Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate tolay them aside without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Receiving, Delay
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

As for Clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Novelty, Opinion
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.23, Graphic Arts Books

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched.

Henry David Thoreau
Believe, Men, Industrialization
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.44

They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,--how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.

Henry David Thoreau
Beach, Believe, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Journeys, Adventures & Life in Harmony with Nature – 6 Book Collection (Illustrated): Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada & Canoeing in the Wilderness - North American Highlands Series”, p.806, e-artnow

In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings.

Henry David Thoreau
Ocean, Whales, Sea
Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.167, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The very austerity of the Brahmans is tempting to the devotional soul, as a more refined and nobler luxury. Wants so easily and gracefully satisfied seem like a more refined pleasure. Their conception of creation is peaceful as a dream.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Luxury, Simplicity
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.547, Simon and Schuster

The Universal Soul, as it is called, has an interest in the stacking of hay, the foddering of cattle, and the draining of peat-meadows.

Henry David Thoreau
Soul, Hay, Stacking
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.89, Xist Publishing

We have need to be earth-born as well as heaven-born, gegeneis, as was said of the Titans of old, or in a better sense than they.

Henry David Thoreau
Heaven, Needs, Earth

A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his own wild title earnedin the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Names, Secret
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.407, Penguin

I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men. They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again.

Henry David Thoreau
Honesty, Powerful, Simple
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.42

Every gazette brings accounts of the untutored freaks of the wind,--shipwrecks and hurricanes which the mariner and planter acceptas special or general providences; but they touch our consciences, they remind us of our sins. Another deluge would disgrace mankind.

Henry David Thoreau
Wind, Special, Hurricanes
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1025, Delphi Classics

Our panaceas cure but few ails, our general hospitals are private and exclusive. We must set up another Hygeia than is now worshiped. Do not the quacks even direct small doses for children, larger for adults, and larger still for oxen and horses? Let us remember that we are to prescribe for the globe itself.

Henry David Thoreau
Horse, Children, Health
Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.164, Macmillan

At present the globe goes with a shattered constitution in its orbit.... No doubt the simple powers of nature, properly directed by man, would make it healthy and a paradise; as the laws of man's own constitution but wait to be obeyed, to restore him to health and happiness.

Henry David Thoreau
Health, Simple, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.28, Simon and Schuster

The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours ... but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.

Henry David Thoreau
Adventure, Exercise, Medicine
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.342, Simon and Schuster

For things to change, we must change.

Henry David Thoreau

I hate the present modes of living and getting a living. Farming and shopkeeping and working at a trade or profession are all odious to me. I should relish getting my living in a simple, primitive fashion.

Henry David Thoreau
Fashion, Hate, Simple
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.342, New York Review of Books

That man is richest who's pleasure are cheapest.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Pleasure

A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a governor.

Henry David Thoreau
Leisure, Clergymen, Pursuit
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.229, Graphic Arts Books

Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was, though not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. They were beans cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that I cultivated, and my hoe played the Ranz des Vaches for them.

Henry David Thoreau
Hoe, Savages, Half
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.98, Graphic Arts Books

I would stand upon facts.

Henry David Thoreau
Facts
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.129, Jazzybee Verlag

Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant andfluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any.

Henry David Thoreau
Sweet, Land, Simplicity
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.46, Xist Publishing

How many things are now at loose ends! Who knows which way the wind will blow tomorrow?

Henry David Thoreau
Blow, Wind, Way
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1025, Delphi Classics

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