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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 62

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But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization to you: Home is home, be it never so homely.

But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization to you: "Home is home, be it never so homely."

Henry David Thoreau
Home, Civilization, Camping
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.290

Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody.

Henry David Thoreau
Real, Real Friends, Harmony
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2071, Delphi Classics

If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

Henry David Thoreau
Ignorance, Bridges, Rivers
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.72, Cosimo, Inc.

Every sacred book, successively, has been accepted in the faith that it was to be the final resting-place of the sojourning soul;but after all, it was but a caravansary which supplied refreshment to the traveler, and directed him farther on his way to Isphahan or Bagdat. Thank God, no Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the world, but we are freemen of the universe, and not sentenced to any caste.

Henry David Thoreau
Freedom, Book, Soul
Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau ....”

There are various, nay, incredible faiths; why should we be alarmed at any of them? What man believes, God believes.

Henry David Thoreau
Believe, Men, Religion
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.486, Simon and Schuster

It is true, these Roman Catholics, priests and all, impress me as a people who have fallen far behind the significance of their symbols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a church and were trying to bethink himself. Nevertheless, they are capable of reverence; but we Yankees are a people in whom this sentiment has nearly died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink ourselves even as oxen.

Henry David Thoreau
Yankees, Oxen, People
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Yankee in Canada”, p.17, Graphic Arts Books

The tavern will compare favorably with the church. The church is the place where prayers and sermons are delivered, but the tavernis where they are to take effect, and if the former are good, the latter cannot be bad.

Henry David Thoreau
Prayer, Religion, Church
Henry David Thoreau (1868). “Excursions”, p.108

A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not be a good subjectfor Christianity. The New Testament may be a choice book to him on some, but not on all or most of his days. He will rather go a-fishing in his leisure hours. The Apostles, though they were fishers too, were of the solemn race of sea-fishers, and never trolled for pickerel on inland streams.

Henry David Thoreau
Bible, Faith, Book
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.96, Penguin

We never exchange more than three words with a Friend in our lives on that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Feelings, Three
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.110, Penguin

It is impossible to say all that we think, even to our truest Friend. We may bid him farewell forever sooner than complain, for our complaint is too well grounded to be uttered.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Truth, Communication
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.119, Penguin

There is on the earth no institution which Friendship has established; it is not taught by any religion; no scripture contains itsmaxims. It has no temple, nor even a solitary column. There goes a rumor that the earth is inhabited, but the shipwrecked mariner has not seen a footprint on the shore. The hunter has found only fragments of pottery and the monuments of inhabitants.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Bible, Rumor
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.188, Xist Publishing

For a companion, I require one who will make an equal demand on me with my own genius. Such a one will always be rightly tolerant.It is suicide, and corrupts good manners, to welcome any less than this. I value and trust those who love and praise my aspiration rather than my performance. If you would not stop to look at me, but look whither I am looking, and farther, then my education could not dispense with your company.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Suicide, Ambition
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.212, Delphi Classics

Nothing but great antiquity can make graveyards interesting to me. I have no friends there.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Interesting, No Friends
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.120, Xist Publishing

Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light,--to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure.

Henry David Thoreau
Nature, Cutting, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.71, Trajectory Inc

The New Testament is remarkable for its pure morality; the best of the Hindoo Scripture, for its pure intellectuality. The readeris nowhere raised into and sustained in a higher, purer, or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagvat-Geeta.... It is unquestionably one of the noblest and most sacred scriptures which have come down to us.

Henry David Thoreau
Bible, Sacred Scripture, Morality
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.112, Courier Corporation

This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.

Henry David Thoreau
Beautiful, Nature, World
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1603, Delphi Classics

The journalists think that they cannot say too much in favor of such "improvements" in husbandry; it is a safe theme, like piety;but as for the beauty of one of these "model farms," I would as lief see a patent churn and a man turning it. They are, commonly, places merely where somebody is making money, it may be counterfeiting.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Thinking, Religion
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.158

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

Henry David Thoreau
Love, Passion, Hypocrisy
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1727, Delphi Classics

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Hands, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.207, North Point Press

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Live Life, Ambition
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.31, Heron Dance Press

Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Art, Experience
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.31, Courier Corporation

Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.

Henry David Thoreau
Memorable, Men, World
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.43, Courier Corporation

When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed anddrawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men,--those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.

Henry David Thoreau
Philosophical, Hero, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.774, Modern Library

In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy.

Henry David Thoreau
Summer, Sunset, Autumn

When the ground was partially bare of snow, and a few warm days had dried its surface somewhat, it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winterdecent weeds, at least, which widowed Nature wears.

Henry David Thoreau
Weed, Spring, Winter

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