Authors:

Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 78

All Quotes Achievement Acting Adventure Age Aids Alcohol Ambition Anxiety Appreciation Army Art Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Authority Autumn Beach Beauty Beer Being Alone Being Yourself Bible Birth Bones Bravery Business Caring Change Character Charity Chastity Children Christ Christianity Church Civil Disobedience College Commitment Common Sense Communication Community Confidence Conformity Confusion Consciousness Constitution Contemplation Cooking Copper Country Courage Creation Creativity Criticism Culture Curiosity Darkness Death Deception Democracy Depression Design Desire Destiny Determination Devil Disappointment Discipline Dogma Doubt Drinking Duty Dying Earth Eating Ecology Economics Economy Education Effort Encouraging Energy Enthusiasm Environment Eternity Ethics Evil Excellence Exercise Expectations Experience Failing Failure Faith Fame Family Farming Fashion Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Flying Focus Food Freedom Friends Friendship Funny Future Gardening Generosity Genius Giving Giving Up God Gold Good Deeds Good Morning Goodbye Goodness Gossip Grace Graduation Gratitude Greatness Greed Greek Grief Grieving Growth Happiness Hard Work Harmony Hate Healing Health Heart Heaven Heroism History Home Honesty Honor Hope House Human Nature Humanity Humility Hunger Hunting Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Immortality Imperfection Impulse Independence Individuality Injustice Innocence Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Jesus Journalism Journey Joy Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Language Latin Laughter Learning Liberty Life Listening Literature Live Life Loneliness Losing Loss Love Luck Lying Manhood Mankind Marriage Meditation Memories Mental Health Mercy Mindfulness Money Moon Morality Morning Motivation Motivational Mountain Music Nature Navy Observation Office Opportunity Optimism Overcoming Past Patience Patriotism Peace Perception Perfection Perseverance Personality Perspective Philanthropy Philosophy Physics Pleasure Poetry Police Politics Positive Poverty Power Praise Prayer Pride Privacy Progress Property Purity Purpose Quality Rain Reading Reality Rebellion Reflection Regret Reincarnation Religion Reputation Respect Responsibility Revelations Revolution Risk Running Sabbath Sacrifice Sad Sadness Sailing Sanity School Science Self Esteem Self Reliance Self Respect Serenity Silence Simple Life Simplicity Sin Sincerity Singing Skins Slavery Sleep Sloth Social Responsibility Society Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Sports Spring Strength Struggle Students Study Style Success Suffering Summer Sunrise Sunshine Sympathy Tea Teaching Technology Temperance Thanksgiving Time Today Tradition Tragedy Transcendentalism Travel True Love Trust Truth Understanding Universe Violence Virtue Vision Volunteer Voting Waiting Walking Wall War Water Weakness Wealth Weed Wilderness Wine Winter Wisdom Work Writing Yoga Youth
The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusettsis one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.

The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusettsis one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.

Henry David Thoreau
United States, Slavery, Four
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.325, Simon and Schuster

They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.

Henry David Thoreau
Slavery, Violence, Violent
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.250, Graphic Arts Books

No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.

Henry David Thoreau
Home, Government, Building Up
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.26, Rowman & Littlefield

When I think of the gold-diggers and the Mormons, the slaves and the slave-holders and the flibustiers, I naturally dream of a glorious private life. No, I am not patriotic.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Patriotic, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.196, Jazzybee Verlag

To the innocent there are neither cherubim nor angels.

Henry David Thoreau
Angel, Perfection, Innocence
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.390

There is a certain perfection in accident which we never consciously attain.

Henry David Thoreau
Perfection, Creation, Certain
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.234, Xist Publishing

The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids.

Henry David Thoreau
Time, Pyramids, Perfection
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.280, Delphi Classics

To say that God has given a man many and great talents frequently means that he has brought his heavens down within reach of his hands.

Henry David Thoreau
Mean, Men, Hands
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.243, Xist Publishing

Ktaadnis an Indian word signifying highest land,... very few, even among backwoodsmen and hunters, have ever climbed it, andit will be a long time before the tide of fashionable travel sets that way.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Land, Long

I suspect that, if you should go to the end of the world, you would find somebody there going farther, as if just starting for home at sundown, and having a last word before he drove off.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Home, World
Henry David Thoreau (1864). “The Maine Woods”, p.11

I am very little of a traveler.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Littles, Traveler
Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau ....”

Is not the midnight like Central Africa to most of us? Are we not tempted to explore it,--to penetrate to the shores of its Lake Tchad, and discover the source of its Nile, perchance the Mountains of the Moon? Who knows what fertility and beauty, moral and natural, are to be found? In the Mountains of the Moon, in the Central Africa of the night, there is where all Niles have their hidden heads. The expeditions up the Nile as yet extend but to the Cataracts, or perchance to the mouth of the White Nile; but it is the black Nile that concerns us.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Moon, Night
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1258, Delphi Classics

To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Health, Doctors
Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.91, Cambridge University Press

The other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. Our voyaging is only great-circle sailing.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Home, Circles
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.311, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He'll be as dumb as if his lips were stone.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Men, Dumb
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1221, Delphi Classics

Time hides no treasures; we want not its then, but its now.

Henry David Thoreau
Time, Treasure, Want
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.108, Xist Publishing

I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.

Henry David Thoreau
Wall, Confused, Ears
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.190, Simon and Schuster

I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It would be too cruel.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Children, Mind
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1692, Delphi Classics

Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement? The sparrow seems always chipper, never infirm. We do not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives. They must perish miserably; not one of them is translated. True, "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father's knowledge," but they do fall, nevertheless.

Henry David Thoreau
Father, Lying, Fall
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.236

As they say in geology, time never fails, there is always enough of it, so I may say, criticism never fails.

Henry David Thoreau
Time, Criticism, May
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.53, Jazzybee Verlag

See yonder thin column of smoke curling up through the woods from some invisible farmhouse, the standard raised over some rural homestead.... It is a hieroglyphic of man's life, and suggests more intimate and important things than the boiling of a pot. Where its fine column rises above the forest, like an ensign, some human life has planted itself,--and such is the beginning of Rome, the establishment of the arts, and the foundation of empires, whether on the prairies of America or the steppes of Asia.

Henry David Thoreau
Art, Men, America

How far men go for the material of their houses! The inhabitants of the most civilized cities, in all ages, send into far, primitive forests, beyond the bounds of their civilization, where the moose and bear and savage dwell, for their pine boards for ordinary use. And, on the other hand, the savage soon receives from cities iron arrow-points, hatchets, and guns, to point his savageness with.

Henry David Thoreau
Native American, Gun, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.65, Trajectory Inc

Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners?

Henry David Thoreau
Pain, Memories, Taken
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.92

The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.

Henry David Thoreau
News, Genius, Journalism
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.235, Simon and Schuster

The newspapers are the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marines at Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily Times, government will go down on its knees to him, for this is the only treason these days.

Henry David Thoreau
Marine, Men, Independence
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.89, Rowman & Littlefield

You May Also Like: