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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 81

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Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.

Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.

Henry David Thoreau
Life, Love You, House
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.232, Xist Publishing

As for conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that. Let not your right hand know what your left hand does in that line of business. It will prove a failure.... It is a greater strain than any soul can long endure. When you get God to pulling one way, and the devil the other, each having his feet well braced,--to say nothing of the conscience sawing transversely,--almost any timber will give way.

Henry David Thoreau
Thinking, Hands, Feet
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.1292, e-artnow

To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, andflatter and study effect only more finely than the rest.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Hypocrisy, Independence
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.221, Graphic Arts Books

Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher way of the two.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Two, Independence
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.419, Penguin

The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men.

Henry David Thoreau
Father, Men, Race
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.9, Courier Corporation

I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures broken that they may be reduced to the same level.

Henry David Thoreau
Dog, Horse, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.252, North Point Press

We sometimes meet uncivil men, children of Amazons, who dwell by mountain paths, and are said to be inhospitable to strangers; whose salutation is as rude as the grasp of their brawny hands, and who deal with men as unceremoniously as they are wont to deal with the elements. They need only extend their clearings, and let in more sunlight, to seek out the southern slopes of the hills, from which they may look down on the civil plain or ocean, and temper their diet duly with the cereal fruits, consuming less wild meat and acorns, to become like the inhabitants of cities.

Henry David Thoreau
Children, Ocean, Men
Henry David Thoreau (1862). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. By Henry D. Thoreau”, p.211

The Grecian are youthful and erring and fallen gods, with the vices of men, but in many important respects essentially of the divine race.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Race, Important
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.45, Xist Publishing

Why the jailer does not leave open his prison doors,--why the judge does not dismiss his case,--why the preacher does not dismisshis congregation! It is because they do not obey the hint God gives them, nor accept the pardon which he freely offers to all.

Henry David Thoreau
Doors, Law, Giving

Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.

Henry David Thoreau
Book, Views, Clerks
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.510, Simon and Schuster

I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely blossom; and soI am content to live.

Henry David Thoreau
Two, Expectations, Optimism

I am from time to time congratulating myself on my general want of success as a lecturer; apparent want of success, but is it nota real triumph? I do my work clean as I go along, and they will not be likely to want me anywhere again. So there is no danger of my repeating myself, and getting to a barrel of sermons, which you must upset, and begin again with.

Henry David Thoreau
Real, Upset, Triumph

If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?

Henry David Thoreau
Respect, Progress, Culture
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.71, Courier Corporation

When the chopper would praise a pine, he will commonly tell you that the one he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen stood on its stump; as if that were what the pine had grown for, to become the footstool of oxen.

Henry David Thoreau
Cutting, Oxen, Yoke
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.234

I should have liked to come across a large community of pines, which had never been invaded by the lumbering army.

Henry David Thoreau
Army, Should Have, Community
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.123, Trajectory Inc

Especially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of humor to render it light and digestible.

Henry David Thoreau
Funny, Philosophy, Humor
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1078, Delphi Classics

Truly, our greatest blessings are very cheap.

Henry David Thoreau
Blessing, Greatest Blessings
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.96, Simon and Schuster

Under the one word "house" are included the schoolhouse, the almshouse, the jail, the tavern, the dwellinghouse; and the meanest shed or cave in which men live contains elements of all these. But nowhere on the earth stands the entire and perfect house.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Jail, Perfect
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Civil Disobedience & Other Essays - Premium Collection: 26 Political, Philosophical & Historical Essays: Slavery in Massachusetts, Life Without Principle, The Landlord, Walking, Sir Walter Raleigh, Paradise (to be) Regained, Herald of Freedom, A Plea for Captain John Brown, The Highland Light, Dark Ages…”, p.112, e-artnow

Instead of the scream of a fish hawk scaring the fishes, is heard the whistle of the steam-engine, arousing a country to its progress.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Fishing, Progress
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.367, Modern Library

To speak or do anything that shall concern mankind, one must speak and act as if well, or from that grain of health which he has left.

Henry David Thoreau
Health, Reform, Speak
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1692, Delphi Classics

When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Museums, Race
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.103, Jazzybee Verlag

We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better than the many.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Progress, Reform
Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.6, Hayes Barton Press

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.

Henry David Thoreau
Government, Democracy, Progress
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.88, Penguin

Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towardsrecognizing and organizing the rights of man?

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Rights, Democracy
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.211, Graphic Arts Books

Doubtless, we are as slow to conceive of Paradise as of Heaven, of a perfect natural as of a perfect spiritual world. We see how past ages have loitered and erred. "Is perhaps our generation free from irrationality and error? Have we perhaps reached now the summit of human wisdom, and need no more to look out for mental or physical improvement?" Undoubtedly, we are never so visionary as to be prepared for what the next hour may bring forth.

Henry David Thoreau
Spiritual, Past, Errors
Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.122, North Point Press

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