Authors:

Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 99

All Quotes Achievement Acting Adventure Age Aids Alcohol Ambition Anxiety Appreciation Army Art Atheism Atmosphere Attitude Authority Autumn Beach Beauty Beer Being Alone Being Yourself Bible Birth Bones Bravery Business Caring Change Character Charity Chastity Children Christ Christianity Church Civil Disobedience College Commitment Common Sense Communication Community Confidence Conformity Confusion Consciousness Constitution Contemplation Cooking Copper Country Courage Creation Creativity Criticism Culture Curiosity Darkness Death Deception Democracy Depression Design Desire Destiny Determination Devil Disappointment Discipline Dogma Doubt Drinking Duty Dying Earth Eating Ecology Economics Economy Education Effort Encouraging Energy Enthusiasm Environment Eternity Ethics Evil Excellence Exercise Expectations Experience Failing Failure Faith Fame Family Farming Fashion Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Flying Focus Food Freedom Friends Friendship Funny Future Gardening Generosity Genius Giving Giving Up God Gold Good Deeds Good Morning Goodbye Goodness Gossip Grace Graduation Gratitude Greatness Greed Greek Grief Grieving Growth Happiness Hard Work Harmony Hate Healing Health Heart Heaven Heroism History Home Honesty Honor Hope House Human Nature Humanity Humility Hunger Hunting Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Immortality Imperfection Impulse Independence Individuality Injustice Innocence Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Jesus Journalism Journey Joy Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Language Latin Laughter Learning Liberty Life Listening Literature Live Life Loneliness Losing Loss Love Luck Lying Manhood Mankind Marriage Meditation Memories Mental Health Mercy Mindfulness Money Moon Morality Morning Motivation Motivational Mountain Music Nature Navy Observation Office Opportunity Optimism Overcoming Past Patience Patriotism Peace Perception Perfection Perseverance Personality Perspective Philanthropy Philosophy Physics Pleasure Poetry Police Politics Positive Poverty Power Praise Prayer Pride Privacy Progress Property Purity Purpose Quality Rain Reading Reality Rebellion Reflection Regret Reincarnation Religion Reputation Respect Responsibility Revelations Revolution Risk Running Sabbath Sacrifice Sad Sadness Sailing Sanity School Science Self Esteem Self Reliance Self Respect Serenity Silence Simple Life Simplicity Sin Sincerity Singing Skins Slavery Sleep Sloth Social Responsibility Society Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Sports Spring Strength Struggle Students Study Style Success Suffering Summer Sunrise Sunshine Sympathy Tea Teaching Technology Temperance Thanksgiving Time Today Tradition Tragedy Transcendentalism Travel True Love Trust Truth Understanding Universe Violence Virtue Vision Volunteer Voting Waiting Walking Wall War Water Weakness Wealth Weed Wilderness Wine Winter Wisdom Work Writing Yoga Youth
The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes.

The imagination, give it the least license, dives deeper and soars higher than Nature goes.

Henry David Thoreau
Art, Giving, Imagination
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.186, Cosimo, Inc.

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.

Henry David Thoreau
Independent, Simple, Simplicity
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.92

Where there is a lull in truth an institution springs up.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Spring, Institutions
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.23, Heron Dance Press

It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.

Henry David Thoreau
Rivers, Environmental, Way
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2215, Delphi Classics

The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks where the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Years, Land
Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden: An Annotated Edition”, p.323, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The man of genius knows what he is aiming at; nobody else knows. And he alone knows when something comes between him and his object. In the course of generations, however, men will excuse you for not doing as they do, if you will bring enough to pass in your own way.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Excuse You, Generations
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.204, Courier Corporation

But why should not the New Englander try new adventures - not lay so much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards - and raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men.

Henry David Thoreau
Stress, Adventure, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “The Illustrated Walden: Thoreau Bicentennial Edition”, p.171, Penguin

If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Names, Landscape
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.128, Cosimo, Inc.

I say, break the law.

Henry David Thoreau
Law, Morality, Lawyer
Civil Disobedience (1849) See Savio 1

In most books, the I, of first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference.

Henry David Thoreau
Book, Differences, Self Reliance
Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden and on the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, p.5, Henry David Thoreau

We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking.

Henry David Thoreau
Self Reliance, Firsts, Remember
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.8

I do not know but thoughts written down thus in a journal might be printed in the same form with greater advantage than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays.

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

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution - such call I good books.

Henry David Thoreau
Book, Reading, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.67, Xist Publishing

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.

Henry David Thoreau
Wise, Men, Wish
Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.6, Hayes Barton Press

By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.

Henry David Thoreau
Effort, Mind, Action
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.387, Delphi Classics

As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Wine, Color
Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.3, Courier Corporation

I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie on the earth.

Henry David Thoreau
Lying, Earth, Landscape
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2217, Delphi Classics

My eye is educated to discover anything on the ground, as chestnuts, etc. It is probably wholesomer to look at the ground much than at the heavens.

Henry David Thoreau
Education, Eye, Heaven
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.468, New York Review of Books

To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another.

Henry David Thoreau
Clouds, Weather, Two
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2012, Delphi Classics

We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.

Henry David Thoreau
Funny, Fashion, Humorous
Henry David Thoreau, Michael McCurdy, Terry Tempest Williams (2010). “Walden”, p.12, Shambhala Publications

Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.

Henry David Thoreau
Roots, Generosity, Certain
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.124, Penguin

Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye.

Henry David Thoreau
Eye, Gnarly, Apples
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Natural History Essays”, p.202, Gibbs Smith

From my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason for a savage's preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Apples, Appreciate
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Natural History Essays”, p.201, Gibbs Smith

All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it.

Henry David Thoreau
Distance, Eye, Interesting
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

Bread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any unmixed and heroic joy.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Generosity, Joy
Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.243, Penguin

You May Also Like: