Henry David Thoreau quotes - page 22

It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it. (Henry David Thoreau)
You never gain something but that you lose something. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
People die of fright and live of confidence. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
One farmer says to me, ''You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with'' and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. (Henry David Thoreau)
We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
How novel and original must be each new mans view of the universe for though the world is so old so many books have been written each object appears wholly undescribed to our experience each field of thought wholly unexplored The whole world is an America, a New World. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The words which express our faith and piety are not definite yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. (Henry David Thoreau)
A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended. View quote
Henry David Thoreau