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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 86

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Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to

Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.

Henry David Thoreau
Character, Yield, Government
Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.8, Hayes Barton Press

No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

Henry David Thoreau
Thinking, Doubt, May
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.75

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature.

Henry David Thoreau
One Day
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.63, Courier Corporation

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Animal, Simple
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.484, Delphi Classics

Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls. And then the sun goes down, and long the afterglow gives light.

Henry David Thoreau
Fall, Artist, Light
Henry David Thoreau, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “Journal, ed. by B. Torrey, 1837-1846, 1850-Nov. 3, 1861”

I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight, New earths and skies and seas around, And in my day the sun doth pale his light.

Henry David Thoreau
Light, Sight, Sea
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.151, Penguin

Some would find fault with the morning, if they ever got up early enough.. The fault find faults even in Paradise.

Henry David Thoreau
Gratitude, Morning, Up Early

Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew and we had to wet our feet to get it! Is the scholastic air any advantage?

Henry David Thoreau
Flower, Air, Editing
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.75, Courier Corporation

If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.

Henry David Thoreau
Justice, Would Be, Spiders
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden”, p.276, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

There is not so good an understanding between any two, but the exposure by the one of a serious fault in the other will produce a misunderstanding in proportion to its heinousness.

Henry David Thoreau
Two, Understanding, Faults
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.283, Princeton University Press

The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled.

Henry David Thoreau
Lakes, Sea, Fishing
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.183, Cosimo, Inc.

Our science, so called, is always more barren and mixed with error than our sympathies.

Henry David Thoreau
Science, Errors, Barren
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Material Faith: Thoreau on Science”, p.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

There are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or inlet, yet unexplored by him.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Sea, World
Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.92, Cambridge University Press

My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought - with these I deal.

Henry David Thoreau
Common Sense, Mind, Body
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.65, Courier Corporation

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Henry David Thoreau
Princess, Tunnels, Media
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.34, Cosimo, Inc.

I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh hour of four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for.

Henry David Thoreau
Night, Hiking, Shade
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.1, 谷月社

Every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us.

Henry David Thoreau
Journey, Hiking, Sauntering
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.1, 谷月社

Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across lots.

Henry David Thoreau
Journey, Hiking, Walking Home
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.3, 谷月社

We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return - sending back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms.

Henry David Thoreau
Heart, Adventure, Journey
Henry David Thoreau (1863). “Excursions”, p.162

Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.... What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

Henry David Thoreau
Journey, Thinking, Hiking
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.395, Penguin

When I hear the hypercritical quarreling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules of theirs. I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless as a lamb's bleat.

Henry David Thoreau
Mother, Father, Writing
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.13, Heron Dance Press

A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful-while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly.

Henry David Thoreau
Beautiful, Ignorance, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.361, Simon and Schuster

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. Let nothing come between you and the light. Respect men and brothers only. When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God

Henry David Thoreau
Brother, Men, Light
Henry David Thoreau (1894). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”

It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astr

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Appreciate, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.482, Simon and Schuster

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

Henry David Thoreau
Ocean, Garden, Sea
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.826, Delphi Classics

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