Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit; it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it succeeds.

Henry David Thoreau
I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched.

Henry David Thoreau
We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper.At any meeting of politicianshow impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! how pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution!

Henry David Thoreau
There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.

Henry David Thoreau
The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.

Henry David Thoreau
The sport of digging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when one's appetite is not too keen.

Henry David Thoreau
I have made a very rude translation of the Seven against Thebes, and Pindar too I have looked at, and wish he was better worth translating. I believe even the best things are not equal to their fame. Perhaps it would be better to translate fame itself,--or is not that what the poets themselves do? However, I have not done with Pindar yet.

Henry David Thoreau
Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution - such call I good books.

Henry David Thoreau
In the unbending of the arm to do the deed there is experience worth all the maxims in the world.

Henry David Thoreau
The monument of death will outlast the memory of the dead. The Pyramids do not tell the tale which was confided to them; the living fact commemorates itself.

Henry David Thoreau
The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of any mountain.

Henry David Thoreau
Where there is not discernment, the behavior even of the purest soul may in effect amount to coarseness.

Henry David Thoreau
I never read a novel, they have so little real life and thought in them.

Henry David Thoreau
Even the elephant carries but a small trunk on his journeys. The perfection of traveling is to travel without baggage.

Henry David Thoreau
The orator puts off his individuality, and is then most eloquent when most silent. He listens while he speaks, and is a hearer along with his audience.

Henry David Thoreau
Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe.

Henry David Thoreau
As polishing expresses the vein in marble, and grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The hero is the sole patron of music.

Henry David Thoreau
It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do.

Henry David Thoreau
What a pity if we do not live this short time according to the laws of the long time,--the eternal laws!

Henry David Thoreau
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
The sun rarely shines in history, what with the dust and confusion; and when we meet with any cheering fact which implies the presence of this luminary, we excerpt and modernize it.

Henry David Thoreau
We are independent of the change we detect. The longer the lever, the less perceptible its motion. It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero then will know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely; we shall sooner overtake the dawn by remaining here than by hurrying over the hills of the west.

Henry David Thoreau
When the reptile is attacked at one mouth of his burrow, he shows himself at another.

Henry David Thoreau
Perfect alchemists I keep who can transmute substances without end, and thus the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure-chest. Here you can dig, not gold, but the value which gold merely represents; and there is no Signor Blitz about it.

Henry David Thoreau
He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behaviour as well as application.

Henry David Thoreau
Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across lots.

Henry David Thoreau
Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.

Henry David Thoreau
I am engaged to Concord and my own private pursuits by 10,000 ties, and it would be suicide to rend them.

Henry David Thoreau
As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented.

Henry David Thoreau
A traveller is to be reverenced as such. His profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from - toward; it is the history of every one of us. It is a great art to saunter.

Henry David Thoreau