Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 21

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

As the stars looked to me when I was a shepherd in Assyria, they look to me now as a New-Englander.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

In solitude especialy do we begin to appreciate the advantage of living with someone who can think.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Those undeserved joys which come uncalled and make us more pleased than grateful are they that sing.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Since all things are good, men fail at last to distinguish which is the bane and which the antidote.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

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

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Can we not do without the society of our gossip a little while, - have our own thoughts to cheer us?

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty, as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Our taste is too delicate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The Indian's intercourse with Nature is at least such as admits of the greatest independence of each.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Especially the transcendental philosophy needs the leaven of humor to render it light and digestible.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

As naturally as the oak bears an acorn and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

I make my own time. I make my own terms. I cannot see how God or Nature can ever get the start of me.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever?

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

We should endeavor practically in our lives to correct all the defects which our imagination detects.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

There is an orientalism in the most restless pioneer, and the farthest west is but the farthest east.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

I have myself to respect, but to myself I am not amiable; but my friend is my amiableness personified.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

I think that Nature meant kindly when she made our brothers few. However, my voice is still for peace.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

There are two classes of authors: the one write the history of their times, the other their biography.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the "means" are increased.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

• Henry David Thoreau / Author

If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.