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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 80

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I could lecture on dry oak leaves; I could, but who would hear me? If I were to try it on any large audience, I fear it would be no gain to them, and a positive loss to me. I should have behaved rudely toward my

I could lecture on dry oak leaves; I could, but who would hear me? If I were to try it on any large audience, I fear it would be no gain to them, and a positive loss to me. I should have behaved rudely toward my rustling friends.

Henry David Thoreau
Loss, Should Have, Trying
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.234, Jazzybee Verlag

The gods cannot misunderstand, man cannot explain.

Henry David Thoreau
God, Communication, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1644, Delphi Classics

If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends!

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Science, Men
Henry David Thoreau, John C. Broderick, Robert Sattelmeyer (1981). “Journal”, p.358, Princeton University Press

When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Imagination, Understanding
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind.

Henry David Thoreau
Fall, Believe, Power
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.215, Cosimo, Inc.

These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this man's acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news that America has ever heard.... How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Suicide, Teaching
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1211, Delphi Classics

I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They have n't got life enough in them.... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Good Man, Dying
Henry David Thoreau (1906). “Journal”

We make needless ado about capital punishment,--taking lives, when there is no life to take.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Punishment, Capital Punishment
Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.377, North Point Press

So soon did we, wayfarers, begin to learn that man's life is rounded with the same few facts, the same simple relations everywhere, and it is vain to travel to find it new.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Simple, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

There is, however, this consolation to the most way-worn traveler, upon the dustiest road, that the path his feet describe is so perfectly symbolical of human life,--now climbing the hills, now descending into the vales. From the summits he beholds the heavens and the horizon, from the vales he looks up to the heights again. He is treading his old lessons still, and though he may be very weary and travel-worn, it is yet sincere experience.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Travel, Feet
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.103, Rowman & Littlefield

Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually thus fair and distinct? All our lives want a suitable background. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in a desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Broken, Solitude
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.17, Yale University Press

Christ was a sublime actor on the stage of the world. He knew what he was thinking of when he said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." I draw near to him at such a time. Yet he taught mankind but imperfectly how to live; his thoughts were all directed toward another world. There is another kind of success than his. Even here we have a sort of living to get, and must buffet it somewhat longer. There are various tough problems yet to solve, and we must shift to live, betwixt spirit and matter, such a human life as we can.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Jesus, Thinking
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.491, Simon and Schuster

So near along life's stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin; and the voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these uncontaminated sources.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Innocence, Youth
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.580, Simon and Schuster

There have been heroes for whom this world seemed expressly prepared, as if creation had at last succeeded; whose daily life was the stuff of which our dreams are made, and whose presence enhanced the beauty and ampleness of Nature herself.

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

Having reached the term of his natural life"; Mwould it not be truer to say, Having reached the term of his unnatural life?

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Natural, Graves
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.119, Xist Publishing

There they lived on, those New England people, farmer lives, father and grandfather and great-grandfather, on and on without noise, keeping up tradition, and expecting, beside fair weather and abundant harvests, we did not learn what. They were contented to live, since it was so contrived for them, and where their lines had fallen.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Father, Weather
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.166, Delphi Classics

Inexpressibly beautiful appears the recognition by man of the least natural fact, and the allying his life to it.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Beautiful, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.878, Delphi Classics

I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience, and was reminded that ourlife should be lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a flower.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Flower, Hunting
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.70, Trajectory Inc

The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the "means" are increased.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Money, Mean
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Civil Disobedience”, p.48, Broadview Press

And by another year, Such as God knows, with freer air, More fruits and fairer flowers Will bear, While I droop here.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Flower, Air
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.129, Penguin

To live a better life,--this surely can be done.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Reform, Done
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1768, Delphi Classics

The only fruit which even much living yields seems to be often only some trivial success,--the ability to do some slight thing better. We make conquest only of husks and shells for the most part,--at least apparently,--but sometimes these are cinnamon and spices, you know.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Success, Yield
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1651, Delphi Classics

I am not afraid that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Integrity, Significance
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.142, Jazzybee Verlag

I do believe that the outward and the inward life correspond; that if any should succeed to live a higher life, others would not know of it; that difference and distance are one. To set about living a true life is to go on a journey to a distant country, gradually to find ourselves surrounded by new scenes and men; and as long as the old are around me, I know that I am not in any true sense living a new or a better life.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Country, Travel
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.356, Penguin

What an admirable training is science for the more active warfare of life! Indeed, the unchallenged bravery which these studies imply, is far more impressive than the trumpeted valor of the warrior.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Warrior, Science
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.31, Penguin

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