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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 50

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The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.

The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Cat, Men
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.55, Courier Corporation

However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the lay, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Imagination, Criticism

If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Society, Would Be
"Life Without Principle". The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, Issue 71, (pp. 484-495), 1863.

Life is grand, and so are its environments of Past and Future. Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man's destiny were not equally so?

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Beautiful, Past
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2121, Delphi Classics

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Beautiful, Book
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.83, Heron Dance Press

I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Two, Letters
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.78, BookBaby

Between whom there is hearty truth, there is love; and in proportion to our truthfulness and confidence in one another, our lives are divine and miraculous, and answer to our ideal. . . . Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Truth, Answers

Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Children, Failure
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.61, Simon and Schuster

Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves. . . .

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Lakes, Law
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.44, Courier Corporation

The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but last fruits also.

Henry David Thoreau
Sacrifice, Squirrels, Years
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.259

If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Wages, Pay
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.216, Graphic Arts Books

The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.

Henry David Thoreau
Psychology, Levels, Come Up
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.4, Courier Corporation

It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is the bog in our brains and bowels, the primitive vigor of Nature in us, that inspires that dream. I shall never find in the wilds of Labrador a greater wildness than in some recess of Concord.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Nature, Inspire
David R. Foster, Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Thoreau's Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape”, p.5, Harvard University Press

I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Earth, Beans
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.238, Penguin

All that man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love-to sing, and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Men, Forever
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.130, Courier Corporation

Love does not analyze its object.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Doe, Objects
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2095, Delphi Classics

All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Learning, Knowledge
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.57, Courier Corporation

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Men, Tragedy
Henry David Thoreau (2002). “Walden: Or, Life in the Woods”, p.26, Courier Corporation

We love to hear some men speak, though we hear not what they say; the very air they breathe is rich and perfumed, and the sound of their voices falls on the ear like the rustling of leaves or the crackling of the fire. They stand many deep.

Henry David Thoreau
Fall, Loss, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.380, Princeton University Press

The ears were made, not for such trivial uses as men are wont to suppose, but to hear celestial sounds.

Henry David Thoreau
Loss, Men, Sound
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.128, Penguin

We do not enjoy poetry unless we know it to be poetry.

Henry David Thoreau
Transcendentalism, Enjoy, Knows
'Journal' 1 October 1856 (published 1903)

On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning.

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Hopeful, Soul
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Elevating Ourselves: Thoreau on Mountains”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

As we lay huddled together under the tent, which leaked considerably about the sides, with our baggage at our feet, we listened to some of the grandest thunder which I ever heard, -rapid peals, round and plump, bang, bang, bang in succession, like artillery from some fortress in the sky; and the lightning was proportionally brilliant. The Indian said, 'It must be good powder.' All for the benefit of the moose and us, echoing far over the concealed lakes.

Henry David Thoreau
Sky, Feet, Lakes

The most attractive sentences are not perhaps the wisest, but the surest and soundest.

Henry David Thoreau
Attractive, Sentences, Attractiveness
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.29, David M Gross

Fame is not just. She never finely or discriminatingly praises, but coarsely hurrahs.

Henry David Thoreau
Praise, Fame
Henry David Thoreau (1884). “Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”

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