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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 94

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Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are constantly being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the

Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are constantly being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.

Henry David Thoreau
Fashion, Power, Law
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.97, Xist Publishing

Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.

Henry David Thoreau
Stars, Ocean, Native American
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.225, Xist Publishing

It is worth the while to detect new faculties in man,--he is so much the more divine; and anything that fairly excites our admiration expands us. The Indian, who can find his way so wonderfully in the woods, possesses an intelligence which the white man does not,--and it increases my own capacity, as well as faith, to observe it. I rejoice to find that intelligence flows in other channels than I knew. It redeems for me portions of what seemed brutish before.

Henry David Thoreau
Native American, Men, Discovery
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.1361, e-artnow

I have made a short excursion into the new world which the Indian dwells in, or is. He begins where we leave off.

Henry David Thoreau
Native American, World, Made
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1843, Delphi Classics

A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,--the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man's treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.

Henry David Thoreau
Native American, Men, White Man
Henry David Thoreau (1974). “The correspondence of Henry David Thoreau”, Greenwood Pub Group

Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return-prepared to send beck our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, brother and sister, and wife and child and friends and never see them again,-if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled your affairs and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.

Henry David Thoreau
Mother, Brother, Children

We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it. We know not where we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time.

Henry David Thoreau
Feet, Sound, Half
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.192, Simon and Schuster

I bought me a spy-glass some weeks since. I buy but a few things, and those not till long after I begin to want them, so that when I do get them I am prepared to make a perfect use of them and extract their whole sweet.

Henry David Thoreau
Sweet, Glasses, Long
Henry David Thoreau, Steve Grant (2005). “Daily Observations: Thoreau on the Days of the Year”, p.29, Univ of Massachusetts Press

If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates a rottenness at the foundation of our community.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Community, Police
Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.414, Yale University Press

Ninety-nine one-hundredths of our lives we are mere hedgers and ditchers, but from time to time we meet with reminders of our destiny.

Henry David Thoreau
Destiny, Ninety Nine, Reminders
Henry David Thoreau, Barry Andrews (2005). “True Harvest: Readings from Henry David Thoreau for Every Day of the Year”, p.26, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

It is rare that we use our thinking faculty as resolutely as an irishman his spade. To please our friends and relatives we turn out our silver ore in cartloads, while we neglect to workour mines of gold known only to ourselves far up in the Sierras, where we pulled up a bush in our mountain walk, and saw the glittering treasure. Let us return thither. Let it be the price of our freedom to make that known.

Henry David Thoreau
Thinking, Gold, Mountain
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.4, David M Gross

How many fine thoughts has every man had! How few fine thoughts are expressed!

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Fine, Every Man
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.357, Penguin

How to extract its honey from the flower of the world. That is my everyday business. I am as busy as a bee about it. I ramble over fields on that errand and am never so happy as when I feel myself heavy with honey and wax. I am like a bee searching the livelong day for the sweets of nature.

Henry David Thoreau
Sweet, Flower, Everyday
Henry David Thoreau (1993). “A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851”, p.204, Penguin

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me.... I milk the sky and the earth.

Henry David Thoreau
Sky, Earth, Milk

Here I am thirty-four years old, and yet my life is almost wholly unexpanded. How much time is in the germ! There is such an interval between my ideal and the actual in many circumstances that I may say I am unborn.

Henry David Thoreau
Years, Here I Am, Four
Henry David Thoreau (1962). “The journal of Henry D. Thoreau”

Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward habitually at an elevated angle, it is as if it were redeemed. When the desire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly elevated, and so far better already.

Henry David Thoreau
Desire, Looks, Spirit
Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.25, Courier Corporation

A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

Henry David Thoreau
Doors, Feet, Evil
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.49, Graphic Arts Books

For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it (life), whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever.'

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Forever, Devil
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.59, Courier Corporation

As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day.

Henry David Thoreau
War, Native American, Hunting
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.247

What have I to do with plows? I cut another furrow than you see.

Henry David Thoreau
Cutting, Independence, Conformity
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.356, Modern Library

It is but too easy to establish another durable and harmonious routine. Immediately all parts of nature consent to it. Only make something to take the place of something, and men will behave as if it was the very thing they wanted.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Routine, Conformity
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.106, Delphi Classics

We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit.... But though it is full of good sense and humanity, it is not transcendent poetry.For picturesque description of persons it is, perhaps, without a parallel in English poetry; yet it is essentially humorous, as the loftiest genius never is.

Henry David Thoreau
Humorous, Humanity, Genius
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.462, Modern Library

On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and Shakespeare, for he would haveheld up his head in their company.

Henry David Thoreau
Littles, Reputation, Chaucer
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.295, Courier Corporation

He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.

Henry David Thoreau
Blow, Wind, Sailing
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.688, Simon and Schuster

I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of the people, to discover a pretext for conformity.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Hair, Years
Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden and Other Writings”, p.107, Bantam Classics

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