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Henry David Thoreau Quotes about Memories

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Tradition is a more interrupted and feebler memory.

Tradition is a more interrupted and feebler memory.

Henry David Thoreau
Memories, Tradition, Interrupted
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.309

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Henry David Thoreau
Time, Memories, Transcendentalism
'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

We believe that the possibility of the future far exceeds the accomplishment of the past. We review the past with the common sense, but we anticipate the future with transcendental senses. In our sanest moments we find ourselves naturally expecting or prepared for far greater changes than any which we have experienced within the period of distinct memory, only to be paralleled by experiences which are forgotten.

Henry David Thoreau
Memories, Believe, Past
Henry David Thoreau (1968). “Reflections at Walden: Selected Writings”

Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the rich leave money to defray the expenses of their funerals, and their memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as monuments of other men are overgrown with moss; for our Friends have no place in the graveyard.

Henry David Thoreau
Friendship, Memories, Men
Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.203, Xist Publishing

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

Henry David Thoreau
Memories, Inspiration, Losing
Henry David Thoreau (1993). “A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851”, p.204, Penguin

The monument of death will outlast the memory of the dead. The Pyramids do not tell the tale which was confided to them; the living fact commemorates itself.

Henry David Thoreau
Memories, Pyramids, Facts
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.549, Simon and Schuster

I pray that the life of this spring and summer may ever lie fair in my memory.

Henry David Thoreau
Summer, Memories, Lying
Henry David Thoreau (2011). “The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861”, p.117, New York Review of Books

What other words, we may almost ask, are memorable and worthy to be repeated than those which love has inspired? It is wonderful that they were ever uttered. They are few and rare indeed, but, like a strain of music, they are incessantly repeated and modulated by the memory. All other words crumble off with the stucco which overlies the heart. We should not dare to repeat these now aloud. We are not competent to hear them at all times.

Henry David Thoreau
Memories, Memorable, Heart
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.637, Simon and Schuster

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

Henry David Thoreau
Beauty, Memories, Doe
Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.170, Cosimo, Inc.

The very willow-rows lopped every three years for fuel or powder, - and every sizable pine and oak, or other forest tree, cut down within the memory of man! As if individual speculators were to be allowed to export the clouds out of the sky, or the stars out of the firmament, one by one. We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.

Henry David Thoreau
Stars, Memories, Cutting
Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.158

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

Henry David Thoreau
Happiness, Laughter, Memories
Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1631, Delphi Classics

Of what significance are the things you can forget.

Henry David Thoreau
Memories, Silly, Forget
Henry David Thoreau, Horace Elisha Scudder, Harrison Gray Otis Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1803). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, p.428

Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners?

Henry David Thoreau
Pain, Memories, Taken
Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.92

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

Henry David Thoreau
Dream, Time, Memories
1841 Journal entry, 19 Feb.

Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than now.

Henry David Thoreau
Memories, Garden, Dwelling
Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.249, Modern Library

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

I do not know at first what it is that harms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to be fairer and truer in to-morrow's memory.

Henry David Thoreau
Appreciation, Memories, Men

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