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Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Giving

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A bore is someone who takes away my solitude and doesn't give me companionship in return.

A bore is someone who takes away my solitude and doesn't give me companionship in return.

Henry David Thoreau
Giving, Solitude, Return

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Giving, Lasts
Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Uncommon Learning: Thoreau on Education”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?

Henry David Thoreau
Government, Giving, Haste
Civil Disobedience (1849)

You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give.

Henry David Thoreau
Integrity, Giving, Needs
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.92, Cosimo, Inc.

Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth.

Henry David Thoreau
Giving, Poverty, Wealth
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.121, Graphic Arts Books

Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Giving, Meals
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

If you give money, spend yourself with it.

Henry David Thoreau
Money, Giving, Charity
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.119

Give me a Wildness whose glance no civilization can endure.

Henry David Thoreau
Civilization, Giving, Glances
Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.48, David M Gross

My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness!

Henry David Thoreau
Ocean, Giving, Desert
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.355, Simon and Schuster

If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Henry David Thoreau
Truth, Years, Giving

Give me a sentence which no intelligence can understand. There must be a kind of life and palpitation to it, and under its words akind of blood must circulate forever.

Henry David Thoreau
Knowledge, Blood, Giving

As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is most correct.

Henry David Thoreau
Land, Giving, Different
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.1096, e-artnow

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.

Henry David Thoreau
Men, Hands, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.207, North Point Press

I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.

Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational, Hero, Giving
Henry David Thoreau, Carl Hovde (1980). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.140, Princeton University Press

A gun will give you the body, not the bird

Henry David Thoreau
Gun, Giving, Bird
Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

The scholar may be sure that he writes the tougher truth for the calluses on his palms. They give firmness to the sentence. Indeed, the mind never makes a great and successful effort, without a corresponding energy of the body.

Henry David Thoreau
Writing, Successful, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.517, Simon and Schuster

How wholesome winter is, seen far or near; how good, above all mere sentimental, warm-blooded, short-lived, soft-hearted, moral goodness, commonly so called. Give me the goodness which has forgotten its own deeds,--which God has seen to be good, and let be.

Henry David Thoreau
Winter, Hypocrisy, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.284, Jazzybee Verlag

Why the jailer does not leave open his prison doors,--why the judge does not dismiss his case,--why the preacher does not dismisshis congregation! It is because they do not obey the hint God gives them, nor accept the pardon which he freely offers to all.

Henry David Thoreau
Doors, Law, Giving

The true and not despairing Friend will address his Friend in some such terms as these. "I never asked thy leave to let me love thee,--I have a right. I love thee not as something private and personal, which is your own, but as something universal and worthy of love, which I have found. O, how I think of you! You are purely good, --you are infinitely good. I can trust you forever. I did not think that humanity was so rich. Give me an opportunity to live.

Henry David Thoreau
Thinking, Opportunity, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.408, Modern Library

Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. Often the poor man is not cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune.

Henry David Thoreau
Dirty, Men, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.78, Modern Library

Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you to let you alone.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Government, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Yankee in Canada”, p.55, Graphic Arts Books

It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completeness and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astr

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Appreciate, Giving
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.482, Simon and Schuster

The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it.

Henry David Thoreau
Law, Giving, Use
Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.24, Heron Dance Press

Don't spend your time in drilling soldiers, who may turn out hirelings after all, but give to undrilled peasantry a country to fight for.

Henry David Thoreau
Country, Fighting, Giving
Letter to Harrison Blake, 26 Sept. 1855

If it is the result of a pure love, there can be nothing sensual in marriage. Chastity is something positive, not negative. It isthe virtue of the married especially. All lusts or base pleasures must give place to loftier delights. They who meet as superior beings cannot perform the deeds of inferior ones.

Henry David Thoreau
Marriage, Giving, Lust

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