Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 49

• Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics think that they know how to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are egregiously mistaken. The art of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Writing, Simple

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.389, Penguin

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• It makes no odds where a man goes or stays, if he is only about his business.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Travel, Integrity, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.197, Jazzybee Verlag

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• There are many skillful apprentices, but few master workmen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Perfection, Masters, Workers

  Henry David Thoreau (1937). “The selected works of Thoreau”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

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• The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme,--a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection,--to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation,... and for these oversights successive generations have to pay.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Education, College, Division Of Labor

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.39, Graphic Arts Books

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• Carlyle must undoubtedly plead guilty to the charge of mannerism. He not only has his vein, but his peculiar manner of working it.He has a style which can be imitated, and sometimes is an imitator of himself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Style, Veins, Peculiar

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.276, Simon and Schuster

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• The higher the mountain on which you stand, the less change in the prospect from year to year, from age to age. Above a certain height there is no change.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Years, Perspective, Mountain

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.167, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant andfluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sweet, Land, Simplicity

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.46, Xist Publishing

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• How many things are now at loose ends! Who knows which way the wind will blow tomorrow?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Blow, Wind, Way

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1025, Delphi Classics

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• The scenery when it is truly seen reacts on the life of the seer.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Scenery, Seers

  Henry David Thoreau (1993). “A Year in Thoreau's Journal: 1851”, p.204, Penguin

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• If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Funny, Life, Running

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.48, Courier Corporation

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• Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beauty, Memories, Doe

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.170, Cosimo, Inc.

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• God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Views, Literature, Reign

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.361, Penguin

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• Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Literature, Constitution

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.6, Courier Corporation

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• If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Motivational, Men, Desire

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.357, Penguin

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• There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Literature, Life Is

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.90, Xist Publishing

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• Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Stars, Men, Idols

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.242, Xist Publishing

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• My life is like a stroll upon the beach.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Beach, Life Is Like

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.59, BookBaby

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• A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Power, Majority, Minorities

  Henry David Thoreau (1942). “Civil Disobedience”, p.11, Hayes Barton Press

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• Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Motivation, Eye, May

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• When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Pride, Sky, Cities

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.247

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• Most people dread finding out when they come to die that they have never really lived.

  Henry David Thoreau

  People, Dread, Findings

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• The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Inspire, Energy

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.134, Graphic Arts Books

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• Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Summer, Kings, Winter

  Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Walden, Civil Disobedience, and Other Writings: Authoritative Texts, Journal, Reviews and Posthumous Assessments, Criticism”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

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• That devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring with his foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly, introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the country's champion, the Moore of Moore Hall, to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Horse, Spring

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.139, Xist Publishing

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• Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Army, Government, May

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

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