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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 48

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In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive

In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.

Henry David Thoreau
Numbers, Office, Long
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.416, Simon and Schuster

For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.

Henry David Thoreau
Communication, Thinking, Office
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.203, Penguin

I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, House, Empires
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than many fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence its singular success.

Henry David Thoreau
Sentimental, Adventurous, Natural
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.77, Graphic Arts Books

Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moonnor firefly has shown me the causeway to it.

Henry David Thoreau
Firefly, Bogs, Natural
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Natural History Essays”, p.130, Gibbs Smith

In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by thehuman voice,--take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for instance,--which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.

Henry David Thoreau
Summer, Night, Men
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.135, Rowman & Littlefield

It is worth the while to live respectably unto ourselves. We can possibly get along with a neighbor, even with a bedfellow, whom we respect but very little; but as soon as it comes to this, that we do not respect ourselves, then we do not get along at all, no matter how much money we are paid for halting.

Henry David Thoreau
Respect, Littles, Matter
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1768, Delphi Classics

We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood....What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. What if we were to mature as perfectly, root and branch, glowing in the midst of our decay, like the poke!

Henry David Thoreau
Successful, Maturity, Roots

God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator.

Henry David Thoreau
President, Orators
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.321, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Men are as innocent as the morning to the unsuspicious.

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Men, Innocence
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.91, Xist Publishing

No people ever lived by cursing their fathers, however great a curse their fathers might have been to them.

Henry David Thoreau
Father, People, Might
Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.19, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The seeds of the life of fishes are everywhere disseminated, whether the winds waft them, or the waters float them, or the deep earth holds them; wherever a pond is dug, straightway it is stocked with this vivacious race. They have a lease of nature, and it is not yet out.

Henry David Thoreau
Race, Wind, Water
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “The Most Alive is the Wildest – Thoreau’s Complete Works on Living in Harmony with the Nature: Walden, Walking, Night and Moonlight, The Highland Light, A Winter Walk, The Maine Woods, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples…”, p.246, e-artnow

It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery.

Henry David Thoreau
Rich, Live By, Cookery
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.61, David M Gross

The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will poison you.

Henry David Thoreau
Fruit, Poison, Needs
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.132, Graphic Arts Books

Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,--and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

Henry David Thoreau
Practice, Might, Sake
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The gross feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or imagination,whose vast abdomens betray them.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Imagination, Fancy
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.182, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation.... His recent tracks still give variety to a winter's walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tip-toe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.

Henry David Thoreau
Winter, Expectations, Track
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Excursions (Annotated Edition)”, p.16, Jazzybee Verlag

There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.

Henry David Thoreau
Government, Office, Patents
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.166, Rowman & Littlefield

There is reason in the distinction of civil and uncivil. The manners are sometimes so rough a rind that we doubt whether they cover any core or sap-wood at all.

Henry David Thoreau
Doubt, Sap, Woods
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.584, Simon and Schuster

So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good breeding" respects only secondary objects.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Important, Settling
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.224, Graphic Arts Books

A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels. Why not begin his travels at home? Would he have to go far or look very closely to discover novelties? The traveler who, in this sense, pursues his travels at home, has the advantage at any rate of a long residence in the country to make his observations correct and profitable. Now the American goes to England, while the Englishman comes to America, in order to describe the country.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Travel, Home
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.86, Yale University Press

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

Henry David Thoreau
Anger, Heart, Imagination
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.9, Heron Dance Press

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Justice, May
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.87, Penguin

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Imagination, Doe
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods”, p.93, Graphic Arts Books

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Henry David Thoreau
Funny, Life, Running
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.48, Courier Corporation

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