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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 93

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Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which would be more disreputable.

Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which would be more disreputable.

Henry David Thoreau
Mean, Thinking, Hypocrisy
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.190, Simon and Schuster

It is best to lay our plans widely in youth, for then land is cheap, and it is but too easy to contract our views afterward. Youths so laid out, with broad avenues and parks, that they may make handsome and liberal old men! Show me a youth whose mind is like some Washington city of magnificent distances, prepared for the most remotely successful and glorious life after all, when those spaces shall be built over and the idea of the founder be realized. I trust that every New England boy will begin by laying out a Keene Street through his head, eight rods wide.

Henry David Thoreau
Distance, Ambition, Successful
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.932, e-artnow

No man who acts from a sense of duty ever puts the lesser duty above the greater. No man has the desire and the ability to work onhigh things, but he has also the ability to build himself a high staging.

Henry David Thoreau
Ambition, Men, Desire
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1753, Delphi Classics

The deeds of love are less questionable than any action of an individual can be, for, it being founded on the rarest mutual respect, the parties incessantly stimulate each other to a loftier and purer life, and the act in which they are associated must be pure and noble indeed, for innocence and purity can have no equal. In this relation we deal with one whom we respect more religiously even than we respect our better selves, and we shall necessarily conduct as in the presence of God. What presence can be more awful to the lover than the presence of his beloved?

Henry David Thoreau
Respect, Sex, Party
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.65, Yale University Press

Prominent and influential editors, accustomed to deal with politicians, men of an infinitely lower grade, say, in their ignorance,that he acted "on the principle of revenge." They do not know the man. They must enlarge themselves to conceive of him.... They have got to conceive of a man of faith and of religious principle, and not a politician or an Indian; of a man who did not wait till he was personally interfered with or thwarted in some harmless business before he gave his life to the cause of the oppressed.

Henry David Thoreau
Religious, Revenge, Ignorance
Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.47, David M Gross

The sort of morality which the priests inculcate is a very subtle policy, far finer than the politicians', and the world is very successfully ruled by them as the policemen.

Henry David Thoreau
Power, World, Morality
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.96, Penguin

The fact which the politician faces is merely that there is less honor among thieves than was supposed, and not the fact that theyare thieves.

Henry David Thoreau
Honor, Thieves, Faces
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.303, Simon and Schuster

There are more consequences to a shipwreck than the underwriters notice.

Henry David Thoreau
Disaster, Shipwreck, Consequence
Henry David Thoreau (1866). “Cape Cod”, p.151

If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, War, Eye
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.313, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The Xanthus or Scamander is not a mere dry channel and bed of a mountain torrent, but fed by the ever-flowing springs of fame... and I trust that I may be allowed to associate our muddy but much abused Concord River with the most famous in history.

Henry David Thoreau
Trust, Spring, Rivers
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.16

In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men cling to this old song, because they still have moments of unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them an appetite for more.

Henry David Thoreau
Song, Morning, Reading
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.275, Delphi Classics

The student may read Homer or Æschylus in the Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that hein some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages.

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Hero, Greek

One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.

Henry David Thoreau
Age, Generations, Youth
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.19

I love man-kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors. Such foundation too have our lectures and our sermons, commonly.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Hate, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.109, Delphi Classics

I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface ofthings. We think that that is which appears to be.

Henry David Thoreau
Mean, Thinking, Vision
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.152

No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any and all governments. In that sense he was the most American of us all.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Knowing, America
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.322, Simon and Schuster

A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,Mthat was what distinguished him.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Ideas, Common Sense
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.241, Graphic Arts Books

Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Long, Doubt
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.244, Graphic Arts Books

Insane!... Ask the tyrant who is his most dangerous foe, the sane man or the insane?

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Tyrants, Insane
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.58, Rowman & Littlefield

The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunneled under the whole breadth of the land.

Henry David Thoreau
Land, Railroads, Underground Railroad
Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.61, Rowman & Littlefield

I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.

Henry David Thoreau
Revenge, Rome, Independence
Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.57, David M Gross

If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Office, Justice
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.249, Graphic Arts Books

When a noble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble themselves.

Henry David Thoreau
Appreciate, Noble, Done
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.239, David M Gross

The husbandman is always a better Greek than the scholar is prepared to appreciate, and the old custom still survives, while antiquarians and scholars grow gray in commemorating it.

Henry David Thoreau
Appreciate, Greek, Tradition
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.254, Delphi Classics

The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own cast- off griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion.

Henry David Thoreau
Sympathy, Grief, Bravery
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.122

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