Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Country

• 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 game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Strong, Morning

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.718, Modern Library

• I am a citizen of the world first, and of this country at a later and more convenient hour.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Citizens, World

• I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks - who had the genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked for charity, under the pretense of going à la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Art, Children

• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Country, Men

  'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

• Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Children, Spring

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.399, Simon and Schuster

• A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels. Why not begin his travels at home? Would he have to go far or look very closely to discover novelties? The traveler who, in this sense, pursues his travels at home, has the advantage at any rate of a long residence in the country to make his observations correct and profitable. Now the American goes to England, while the Englishman comes to America, in order to describe the country.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Travel, Home

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.86, Yale University Press

• Life consists with Wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest trees.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Men, Climbing

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.11, 谷月社

• When I consider that the noble animals have been exterminated here - the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc, etc - I cannot but feel as I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Funny, Country, Animal

• 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.

  Henry David Thoreau

  God, Country, Men

  1849 A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,'Sunday'.

• True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beauty, Country, Views

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.36, Graphic Arts Books

• There would be this advantage in traveling in your own country, even in your own neighborhood, that you would be so thoroughly prepared to understand what you saw you would make fewer traveler's mistakes.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Travel, Mistake

• As in many countries precious metals belong to the crown, so here more precious natural objects of rare beauty should belong to the public.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Rare Beauty, Crowns

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.3047, Delphi Classics

• It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Travel, Home

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.86, Yale University Press

• The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Men, Mountain

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “The Maine Woods”, p.5, Cosimo, Inc.

• What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Animal, Simple

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.484, Delphi Classics

• I confess I was surprised to find that so many men spent their whole day, ay, their whole lives almost, a-fishing. It is remarkable what a serious business men make of getting their dinners, and how universally shiftlessness and a groveling taste take refuge in a merely ant-like industry. Better go without your dinner, I thought, than be thus everlastingly fishing for it like a cormorant. Of course, viewed from the shore, our pursuits in the country appear not a whit less frivolous.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Men, Lakes

  Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.165, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country [Mexico] is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Military, Army

• Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Mistake, Ignorance

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.156, Penguin

• There is a sort of homely truth and naturalness in some books which is very rare to find, and yet looks cheap enough. There may benothing lofty in the sentiment, or fine in the expression, but it is careless country talk. 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. Some have this merit only.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Art, Book

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.518, Simon and Schuster

• I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere,--for I have had a little experience in that business,--that there isa desire to hear what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country,--and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or such as an audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Strong, Thinking

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.753, Modern Library

• In some countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far from being the Good Shepherd.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Dog, Hunting

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.138, Cosimo, Inc.

• Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might be written today for the next ten years with sufficientaccuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to interest, still less alarm us; but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Years, Rivers

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.532, Simon and Schuster

• Instead of the scream of a fish hawk scaring the fishes, is heard the whistle of the steam-engine, arousing a country to its progress.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Fishing, Progress

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.367, Modern Library

• I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he could tell a cod froma haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long since the fishers of men were fishermen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Men, Long

  Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.40, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• Two or three hours' walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Kings, Two

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walking: Top Essays”, p.3, 谷月社

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