Henry David Thoreau

Quotes

• “I think his fancy for referring everything to the meridian of Concord did not grow out of any ignorance or depreciation ...”
• “Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record ...”
• “Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital funct...”
• “Have you learned the alphabet of heaven and can count three? Do you know the number of God's family? Can you put mysteri...”
• “Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? ...”
• “What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly re...”
• “It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a d...”
• “The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot r...”
• “When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can t...”
• “To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the com...”
• “I would say to the readers of the Scriptures, if they wish for a good book, read the Bhagavad-Gita...translated by Charl...”
• “With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan, - mere Jonathans. We ...”
• “I do not wish to force my thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know of Captain Brown, I would fain d...”
• “I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country's...”
• “When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole coun...”
• “I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character - his immortal life; and so it be...”
• “I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer ...”
• “I had started reading Marx and Lenin, but at that point I think Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau had more effect on ...”
• “To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in f...”
• “The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust governme...”
• “I cannot read a sentence in the book of the Hindoos without being elevated as upon the table-land of the Ghauts. It has ...”
• “Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the gre...”
• “I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more...”
• “They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bib...”
• “As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. Th...”
• “Even the death of Friends will inspire us as much as their lives. They will leave consolation to the mourners, as the ri...”
• “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he wil...”
• “If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he s...”
• “I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me ...”
• “We do not directly go about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our doors behind us, and ramble with ...”
• “Attributed to Thoreau, in The Life You Were Born to Live: A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose (1995) by Dan Millman, p....”
• “The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so ca...”
• “The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to creation: he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonde...”
• “In some lyceums they tell me that they have voted to exclude the subject of religion. But how do I know what their relig...”
• “The Vedas contain a sensible account of God." "The veneration in which the Vedas are held is itself a remarkable feat. T...”
• “It is curious that Thoreau goes to a house to say with little preface what he has just read or observed, delivers it in ...”
• “We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our day. I do not know why my news should be so triv...”
• “In the Hindoo scripture the idea of man is quite illimitable and sublime. There is nowhere a loftier conception of his d...”
• “Henry Thoreau is like the woodgod who solicits the wandering poet & draws him into antres [sic] vast & desarts [sic] idl...”
• “When the husk gets separated from the kernel, almost all men run after the husk and pay their respects to that. It is on...”
• “For Thoreau, the fact that it took him a day to walk or ride into Boston was a benefit-part of living deliberately. But ...”
• “A man who must separate himself from his neighbours' habits in order to be happy, is in much the same case with one who ...”
• “We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy, Literature, and Religion, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and ...”
• “If a thousand [citizens] were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as i...”
• “Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by ...”
• “Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be found in that direction; but that is to go to the ve...”
• “No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orato...”
• “The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls - the worst man is as strong as the best at that ga...”
• “The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward.  To have done anything by which you ear...”
• “While there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity...”