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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 59

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As the stars looked to me when I was a shepherd in Assyria, they look to me now as a New-Englander.

As the stars looked to me when I was a shepherd in Assyria, they look to me now as a New-Englander.

Henry David Thoreau
Stars, Shepherds, Looks
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.167, Jazzybee Verlag

The greatest and saddest defect is not credulity, but an habitual forgetfulness that our science is ignorance.

Henry David Thoreau
Ignorance, Forgetfulness, Defects
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.214, Courier Corporation

Even trees do not die without a groan.

Henry David Thoreau
Death, Tree, Dies
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.69, Courier Corporation

Most men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Cry, Speak

It is the characteristic of great poems that they will yield of their sense in due proportion to the hasty and the deliberate reader. To the practical they will be common sense, and to the wise wisdom; as either the traveler may wet his lips, or an army may fill its water-casks at a full stream.

Henry David Thoreau
Wise, Wisdom, Army
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.147, Princeton University Press

A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.

Henry David Thoreau
Beauty, Expression, Poetry
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.279, Delphi Classics

A true account of the actual is the rarest poetry, for common sense always takes a hasty and superficial view.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Views, Common Sense
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.245, Delphi Classics

There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Art, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.465, Modern Library

It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely true; never statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, nor periodicals, but only great poems, and when they failed, read them again, or perchance write more. Instead of other sacrifice, we might offer up our perfect (teleia) thoughts to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms. For we should be at the helm at least once a day.

Henry David Thoreau
Book, Reading, Writing
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.83, Delphi Classics

The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions.

Henry David Thoreau
Philosophy, Philosophical, Poetry
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.271, Delphi Classics

What a contrast between the stern and desolate poetry of Ossian, and that of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare and Milton, much more of Dryden, and Pope, and Gray! Our summer of English poetry, like the Greek and Latin before it, seems well advanced towards its fall, and laden with the fruit and foliage of the season, with bright autumnal tints, but soon the winter will scatter its myriad clustering and shading leaves, and leave only a few desolate and fibrous boughs to sustain the snow and rime, and creak in the blasts of age.

Henry David Thoreau
Summer, Latin, Fall
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.261, Xist Publishing

The true poem is not that which the public read. There is always a poem not printed on paper,... in the poet's life. It is what hehas become through his work. Not how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist. His true work will not stand in any prince's gallery.

Henry David Thoreau
Art, Expression, Ideas
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU – The Man, The Philosopher & The Trailblazer (Illustrated): Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographical Books & Personal Letters (Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada…)”, p.275, e-artnow

It is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we beginto keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Cousin, Farewell
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.203, Delphi Classics

Time & Co. are, after all, the only quite honest and trustworthy publishers that we know.

Henry David Thoreau
Literature, Honest, Trustworthy
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1722, Delphi Classics

Much is published, but little printed.

Henry David Thoreau
Littles, Printed
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden and Civil Disobedience”, p.80, Xist Publishing

The word which is best said came nearest to not being spoken at all, for it is cousin to a deed which the speaker could have better done. Nay, almost it must have taken the place of a deed by some urgent necessity, even by some misfortune, so that the truest writer will be some captive knight, after all. And perhaps the fates had such a design, when, having stored Raleigh so richly with the substance of life and experience, they made him a fast prisoner, and compelled him to make his words his deeds, and transfer to his expression the emphasis and sincerity of his action.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Cousin, Taken
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.87, Jazzybee Verlag

All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of thewords by which they are expressed, or to attend to their literal instead of their metaphorical sense. They are already supernatural philosophy.

Henry David Thoreau
Philosophy, Philosophical, Law
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.271, Delphi Classics

Such is the never-failing beauty and accuracy of language, the most perfect art in the world; the chisel of a thousand years retouches it.

Henry David Thoreau
Art, Years, Perfect
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.29, Xist Publishing

Give me a sentence which no intelligence can understand. There must be a kind of life and palpitation to it, and under its words akind of blood must circulate forever.

Henry David Thoreau
Knowledge, Blood, Giving

How shall we account for our pursuits, if they are original? We get the language with which to describe our various lives out of acommon mint.

Henry David Thoreau
Language, Mint, Pursuit
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU – The Man, The Philosopher & The Trailblazer (Illustrated): Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographical Books & Personal Letters (Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada…)”, p.1353, e-artnow

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them?

Henry David Thoreau
Law, Unjust, Civil Disobedience
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden and Other Writings”, p.96, Bantam Classics

In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook, his nymph Echo, and his chosen daughter Iambe; for the great god Pan is not dead, as was rumored. No god ever dies. Perhaps of all the gods of New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at his shrine.

Henry David Thoreau
Daughter, Echoes, Nymphs
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU - Ultimate Collection: 6 Books, 26 Essays & 60+ Poems, Including Translations. Biographies & Letters (Illustrated): Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada, Canoeing in the Wilderness, Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, Life Without Principle, Excursions, Poems of Nature, Familiar Letters…”, p.256, e-artnow

No man's thoughts are new, but the style of their expression is the never-failing novelty which cheers and refreshes men. If we were to answer the question, whether the mass of men, as we know them, talk as the standard authors and reviewers write, or rather as this man writes, we should say that he alone begins to write their language at all.

Henry David Thoreau
Cheer, Writing, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.272, Simon and Schuster

It would seem as if the very language of our parlors would lose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far fetched.

Henry David Thoreau
Nerves, Degenerates, Language
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.144, Simon and Schuster

Art can never match the luxury and superfluity of Nature. In the former all is seen; it cannot afford concealed wealth, and is niggardly in comparison; but Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.

Henry David Thoreau
Art, Nature, Roots
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.124, Penguin

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