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Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 97

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There was something refreshingly and wildly musical to my ears in the very name of the white man's canoe, reminding me of Charlevoix and Canadian Voyageurs. The batteau is a sort of mongrel between the canoe and the

There was something refreshingly and wildly musical to my ears in the very name of the white man's canoe, reminding me of Charlevoix and Canadian Voyageurs. The batteau is a sort of mongrel between the canoe and the boat, a fur-trader's boat.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, White Man, Names
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods (Annotated Edition)”, p.7, Jazzybee Verlag

The virtue of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before does not begin to be superhuman.

Henry David Thoreau
Two, Doe, Virtue
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.88, Trajectory Inc

We seem to think that the earth must go through the ordeal of sheep-pasturage before it is habitable by man.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Thinking, Sheep
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.88, Trajectory Inc

Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.

Henry David Thoreau
Art, Luxury, Agriculture
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.25

A fortified town is like a man cased in the heavy armor of antiquity, with a horse-load of broadswords and small arms slung to him, endeavoring to go about his business.

Henry David Thoreau
Horse, Men, Armor
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Yankee in Canada”, p.53, Graphic Arts Books

I do not wish, it happens, to be associated with Massachusetts, either in holding slaves or in conquering Mexico. I am a little better than herself in these respects.

Henry David Thoreau
Respect, Wish, Mexico
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.92, Xist Publishing

I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he could tell a cod froma haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long since the fishers of men were fishermen.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Men, Long
Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.40, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,--none of the servants.

Henry David Thoreau
Cities, Letters, Clergy
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.131, Jazzybee Verlag

It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.

Henry David Thoreau
Teacher, Men, Way
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.415, Simon and Schuster

That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the United States generally, any more than to Patagonia.

Henry David Thoreau
Colonialism, Titles, United States
Henry David Thoreau (1866). “Cape Cod”, p.216

The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks of human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not vomit up.

Henry David Thoreau
Art, Sea, Wrecks
Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.104, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and to strike at the root of the matter at once,--for the root is faith,--I am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say.

Henry David Thoreau
Thinking, Class, Roots
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

But the impressions which the morning makes vanish with its dews, and not even the most "persevering mortal" can preserve the memory of its freshness to midday.

Henry David Thoreau
Morning, Memories, Dew
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.470, Simon and Schuster

For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman;... but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.

Henry David Thoreau
Fall, Ducks, Safety
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.153, Cosimo, Inc.

In some pictures of Provincetown the persons of the inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be buried in the sand.

Henry David Thoreau
Ankles, Sand, Buried
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.842, Delphi Classics

On the 31st of August, 1846, I left Concord in Massachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine,... I proposed to make excursions to Mount Ktaadn, the second highest mountain in New England, about thirty miles distant, and to some of the lakes of the Penobscot, either alone or with such company as I might pick up there.

Henry David Thoreau
Lakes, August, Mountain
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.1

If to chaffer and higgle are bad in trade, they are much worse in Love. It demands directness as of an arrow.

Henry David Thoreau
Arrows, Demand, Bargaining
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1139, Delphi Classics

Unlike the Concord, the Merrimack is not a dead but a living stream, though it has less life within its waters and on its banks. It has a swift current, and, in this part of its course, a clayey bottom, almost no weeds, and comparatively few fishes.

Henry David Thoreau
Weed, Water, Currents
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.62, Xist Publishing

There were three classes of inhabitants who either frequent or inhabit the country which we had now entered: first, the loggers, who, for a part of the year, the winter and spring, are far the most numerous, but in the summer, except for a few explorers for timber, completely desert it; second, the few settlers I have named, the only permanent inhabitants, who live on the verge of it, and help raise supplies for the former; third, the hunters, mostly Indians, who range over it in their season.

Henry David Thoreau
Summer, Country, Spring

It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do.

Henry David Thoreau
Running, Dew, May
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.666, Delphi Classics

The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the heavens; evenafter the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.

Henry David Thoreau
Independent, House, Heaven
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.156, Cosimo, Inc.

It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered written on the subject of getting a living: how to make getting a living not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious; for if getting a living is not so, then living is not.

Henry David Thoreau
Littles, Honest, Honorable
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.230, Simon and Schuster

That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living.

Henry David Thoreau
Mean, Luck, Development
Henry David Thoreau (2007). “My Thoughts Are Murder to the State: Thoreau's Essays on Political Philosophy”, p.172, David M Gross

I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Thinking, Intellectual
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

Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.

Henry David Thoreau
Witty, Powerful, Humorous

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