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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 91

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Pray, for what do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviæ; at last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be burned?

Pray, for what do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuviæ; at last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be burned?

Henry David Thoreau
Moving, Simplicity, World
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Henry David Thoreau: Walden”, p.64, Library of America

A man may travel fast enough and earn his living on the road.

Henry David Thoreau
Travel, Men, Simplicity
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.665, Simon and Schuster

Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.

Henry David Thoreau
Hair, Half, Dozen
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Cape Cod (Annotated Edition)”, p.171, Jazzybee Verlag

The principal, the only, thing a man makes, is his condition of fate. Though commonly he does not know it, nor put up a sign to this effect, "My own destiny made and mended here." (Not yours.) He is a master workman in the business. He works twenty-four hours a day at it, and gets it done. Whatever else he neglects or botches, no man was ever known to neglect this work. A great many pretend to make shoes chiefly, and would scout the idea that they make the hard times which they experience.

Henry David Thoreau
Fate, Hard Times, Destiny
Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Collected Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated): Philosophical and Autobiographical Books, Essays, Poetry, Translations, Biographies & Letters: Walden, Civil Disobedience, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, Slavery in Massachusetts, Walking…”, p.1797, e-artnow

Men should not labor foolishly like brutes, but the brain and the body should always, or as much as possible, work and rest together, and then the work will be of such a kind that when the body is hungry the brain will be hungry also, and the same food will suffice for both; otherwise the food which repairs the waste energy of the overwrought body will oppress the sedentary brain, and the degenerate scholar will come to esteem all food vulgar, and all getting a living drudgery.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Brain, Together

Are you in want of amusement nowadays? Then play a little at the game of getting a living. There was never anything equal to it. Do it temperately, though, and don't sweat.

Henry David Thoreau
Games, Play, Sweat
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.248, Jazzybee Verlag

If thousands are thrown out of employment, it suggests that they were not well employed. Why don't they take the hint? It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

Henry David Thoreau
Employment, Hints, Ants
Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865). “Letters to Various Persons”, p.161

As a preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which that is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a skillful economist at once.

Henry David Thoreau
Work, Men, Bread Of Life
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.369, Penguin

Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world?

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Work, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.33, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds of light and life, where our friends are.

Henry David Thoreau
Lying, Islands, Light
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.365, Penguin

English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included,--breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. Her wildness is a greenwood, her wild man a Robin Hood. There is plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. Her chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not the wild man in her, became extinct.

Henry David Thoreau
Animal, Men, Lakes
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.167, e-artnow

I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidatesas the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Men, Voting

Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Routine, Attention
Henry David Thoreau, Nancy L. Rosenblum (1996). “Thoreau: Political Writings”, p.120, Cambridge University Press

What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that practically I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all.

Henry David Thoreau
Politics, Superficial, Concern
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.226, Graphic Arts Books

An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Office, Community
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.216, Graphic Arts Books

The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organization.

Henry David Thoreau
Cheer, Men, Land
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.28, David M Gross

Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,--that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate,--who is invariably the devil,--and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity,--who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.

Henry David Thoreau
Angel, Men, Light
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.718, Modern Library

What a glorious time they must have in that wilderness, far from mankind and election day!

Henry David Thoreau
Time, Politics, Election
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.630, Delphi Classics

Politics is but a narrow field.

Henry David Thoreau
Politics, Fields
Henry David Thoreau, Joseph O. Valentine, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Land: Nature's Canvas”, p.94, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

An island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral portion of the globe. I have a fancyfor building my hut on one. Even a bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for me.

Henry David Thoreau
Islands, Imagination, Mysterious
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.243, Princeton University Press

The most stupendous scenery ceases to be sublime when it becomes distinct, or in other words limited, and the imagination is no longer encouraged to exaggerate it. The actual height and breadth of a mountain or a waterfall are always ridiculously small; they are the imagined only that content us.

Henry David Thoreau
Imagination, Sublime, Mountain
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.136, Xist Publishing

As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind.

Henry David Thoreau
Stars, Light, Imagination
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.412

Comparatively, we can excuse any offense against the heart, but not against the imagination. The imagination knows--nothing escapes its glance from out its eyry--and it controls the breast.

Henry David Thoreau
Heart, Imagination, Excuse
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.159, Jazzybee Verlag

Men cannot conceive of a state of things so fair that it cannot be realized.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Imagination, Optimism
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.357, Penguin

It gets laughed at because it is a small town, I know, but nevertheless it is a place where great men may be born any day, for fair winds and foul blow right on over it without distinction.

Henry David Thoreau
Blow, Men, Wind
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.36, Xist Publishing

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