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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 55

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As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who

As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect.

Henry David Thoreau
God, Cheer, Humility
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.194, Graphic Arts Books

There are some things which a man never speaks of, which are much finer kept silent about. To the highest communications we only lend a silent ear.

Henry David Thoreau
Communication, Men, Silence
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.416, Modern Library

We have heard much about the poetry of mathematics, but very little of it has yet been sung. The ancients had a juster notion of their poetic value than we.

Henry David Thoreau
Poetry, Littles, Poetic
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.270, Delphi Classics

There may be an excess of cultivation as well as of anything else, until civilization becomes pathetic. A highly cultivated man,--all whose bones can be bent! whose heaven-born virtues are but good manners!

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Civilization, Heaven
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.39, Xist Publishing

We never conceive the greatness of our fates.

Henry David Thoreau
Fate, Greatness, Destiny
Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865). “Letters to Various Persons”, p.25

The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Silence, He Man
Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.155, Courier Corporation

Hold fast to your most indefinite, waking dream.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Ambition, Waking
Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865). “Letters to Various Persons”, p.92

Where is the "unexplored land" but in our own untried enterprises? To an adventurous spirit any place--London, New York, Worcester, or his own yard--is "unexplored land," to seek which Frémont and Kane travel so far. To a sluggish and defeated spirit even the Great Basin and the Polaris are trivial places.

Henry David Thoreau
New York, Ambition, Land
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.277, Jazzybee Verlag

Nothing can shock a brave man but dullness.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Bravery, Shock
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.121, Penguin

On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days.... Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.

Henry David Thoreau
Spring, Hero, Men

Do what you know you ought to do. Why should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to ask a neighbor's advice? There is a nearerneighbor within us incessantly telling us how we should behave. But we wait for the neighbor without to tell us of some false, easier way.

Henry David Thoreau
Waiting, Advice, Way
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1786, Delphi Classics

There is no such thing as accomplishing a righteous reform by the use of "expediency." There is no such thing as sliding up- hill.In morals the only sliders are backsliders.

Henry David Thoreau
Reform, Use, Morality
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.43, Rowman & Littlefield

There is no ill which may not be dissipated, like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it.

Henry David Thoreau
Dark, Light, Evil
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.198, Simon and Schuster

All men are partially buried in the grave of custom, and of some we see only the crown of the head above ground. Better are the physically dead, for they more lively rot. Even virtue is no longer such if it be stagnant. A man's life should be constantly as fresh as this river. It should be the same channel, but a new water every instant.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Rivers, Water
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.93, Xist Publishing

In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.

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

I always see those of whom I have heard well with a slight disappointment. They are so much better than the great herd, and yet the heavens are not shivered into diamonds over their heads.

Henry David Thoreau
Disappointment, Heaven, Herds
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.68, Jazzybee Verlag

How often, when we have been nearest each other bodily, have we really been farthest off! Our tongues were the witty foils with which we fenced each other off.

Henry David Thoreau
Witty, Tongue, Conversation
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.32, Jazzybee Verlag

The very dogs that sullenly bay the moon from farm-yards in these nights excite more heroism in our breasts than all the civil exhortations or war sermons of the age.

Henry David Thoreau
Dog, War, Moon
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.29, Xist Publishing

There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Winter, Heroism
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.164, Jazzybee Verlag

I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen.

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Sleep, Winter
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.115, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

But, on more accounts than one, I had had enough of moose-hunting. I had not come to the woods for this purpose, nor had I foreseen it, though I had been willing to learn how the Indian manvred; but one moose killed was as good, if not as bad, as a dozen.

Henry David Thoreau
Hunting, Moose, Purpose

Even in civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Hunting, Community
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden and Civil Disobedience”, p.154, Xist Publishing

As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun.

Henry David Thoreau
Gun, Thinking, Hunting
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.152, Xist Publishing

I knew that the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money.... In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is true.

Henry David Thoreau
Wall, Virginia, America
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Excursions and Poems : The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume V (of 20)”, p.73, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that the Esquimauxsledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the northern night the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and walrus on the ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginations who would toll the world's knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do better than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other busy living men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher's consolation.

Henry David Thoreau
Dog, Twilight, Writing
Henry David Thoreau (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Journal, ed. by B. Torrey, 1837-1846, 1850-Nov. 3, 1861”

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