Henry David Thoreau quotes - page 26

Most men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them. (Henry David Thoreau)
As for my own business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which is most correct. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
If you give money, spend yourself with it. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Spring - An experience in immortality. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The eye is the jewel of the body. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
I stand in awe of my body. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Morning glory is the best name, it always refreshes me to see it. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Nations What are nations Tartars and Huns and Chinamen Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it gets out of its way. (Henry David Thoreau)
A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
The birds I heard today, which, fortunately, did not come within the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it had been the first morningof creation. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
What is peculiar in the life of a man consists not in his obedience, but his opposition, to his instincts. In one direction or another he strives to live a supernatural life. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
It seems to me that the god that is commonly worshipped in civilized countries is not at all divine, though he bears a divine name, but is the overwhelming authority and respectability of mankind combined. Men reverence one another, not yet God. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Poetry is nothing but healthy speech. (Henry David Thoreau)
I begin to see an object when I cease to understand it. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Of what significance are the things you can forget. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing. View quote
Henry David Thoreau
Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the muse. View quote
Henry David Thoreau