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Henry David Thoreau
229 quotes
“It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You come from attending the funeral of mankind to attend to a natural phenomenon. A little thought is sexton to all the world.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, — that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In some lyceums they tell me that they have voted to exclude the subject of religion. But how do I know what their religion is, and when I am near to or far from it? I have walked into such an arena and done my best to make a clean breast of what religion I have experienced, and the audience never suspected what I was about.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter and study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest primitive rock. Our sills are rotten.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 trivial, — considering what one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan, — mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards, — because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth, — because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufactures and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer intelligence.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at length blows it down.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and, to some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who could believe in prophecies of Daniel or of Miller that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds?”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The South may keep her pine-apples, and we will be content with our strawberries, which are, as it were, pine-apples with "going a-strawberrying" stirred into them, infinitely enhancing their flavor.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man fits out a ship at a great expense and sends it to the West Indies with a crew of men and boys, and after six months or a year, it comes back with a load of pine-apples; now, if no more gets accomplished than the speculator commonly aims at, if it simply turns out what is called a successful venture, I am less interested in this expedition than in some child’s first excursions a-huckleberrying, in which it is introduced into a new world, experiences a new development, though it brings home only a gill of berries in its basket.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the husk gets separated from the kernel, almost all men run after the husk and pay their respects to that. It is only the husk of Christianity that is so bruited and wide spread in this world; the kernel is still the very least and rarest of all things. There is not a single church founded on it.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou (ed.) Pearls of Thought (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1881) p. 21
“Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 32
“We are not that we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for that we are capable of being.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 37
“The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls, and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. Those who are taken into it live like pensioners in their Retreat or Sailors' Snug Harbor, where you may see a row of religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 43
“We do not directly go about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our doors behind us, and ramble with prepared minds, as if the half were already done. Our resolution is taking root or hold on the earth then, as seeds first send a shoot downward, which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upwards to the light.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 61
“Enthusiasm is supernatural serenity.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 74
“The language of excitement is at best but picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 80
“Even the best things are not equal to their fame.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 87
“What is commonly called friendship even is only a little more honor among rogues.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 95
“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 95
“The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of hate. When it is durable, it is serene and equable. Even its famous pains begin only with the ebb of love, for few are indeed lovers, though all would fain be.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 158
“Love is a severe critic. Hate can pardon more than love.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 159
“It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 163
“There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 170
“Let a man take time enough for the most trivial deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. The buds swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion; as if the short spring days were an eternity.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 175
“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 177
“The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospect.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 210
“Nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind than medicine. Quackery is a thing universal, and universally successful. In this case it becomes literally true that no imposition is too great for the credulity of men.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 218
“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 222
“Our sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 231
“There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 254
“Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 264
“It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero will then know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pearls of Thought (1881) p. 273
“My life is like a stroll upon the beach, As near the ocean's edge as I can go.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) first seen 1787 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Fisher's Boy", in Edmund Clarence Stedman (ed.) An American Anthology, 1787–1900 (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1900)
“Whate'er we leave to God, God does And blesses us.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inspiration", in An American Anthology (1900)
“I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight, New earths and skies and seas around, And in my day the sun doth pale his light.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inspiration", in An American Anthology (1900)
“She with one breath attunes the spheres, And also my poor human heart.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inspiration", in An American Anthology (1900)
“Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climes and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I am at it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Bansi Pandit, The Hindu Mind (B & V Enterprises, 1996) p. 307
“I would say to the readers of the Scriptures, if they wish for a good book, read the Bhagavad-Gita...translated by Charles Wilkins. It deserves to be read with reverence even by yankees...Besides the Bhagvat-Geeta, our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully green...Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light it is destined to derive thence.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Sushama Londhe, A Tribute to Hinduism (New Delhi: Pragun Publication, 2008) p. 26