Henry David Thoreau Quotes - Page 61

• I see in many places little barberry bushes just come up densely in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been eaten by the cows. Here they find manure and an open space for the first year at least, when they are not choked by grass or weeds. In this way, evidently, many of these clumps of barberries are commenced.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Weed, Years, Apples

  David R. Foster, Henry David Thoreau (1999). “Thoreau's country: journey through a transformed landscape”, Harvard Univ Pr

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• I once found a kernel of corn in the middle of a deep wood by Walden, tucked in behind a lichen on a pine, about as high as my head, either by a crow or a squirrel. It was a mile at least from any corn-field.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Cutting, Squirrels, Crow

  Henry David Thoreau, Carl Bode (1967). “The best of Thoreau's journals”, Southern Illinois Univ Pr

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• In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages. Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Time, Fishing, Sublime

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• For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Bible, Light, Years

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.211, Graphic Arts Books

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• For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Self, Years, Payment

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• One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then

  Henry David Thoreau

  Friendship, Feelings, May

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.2044, Delphi Classics

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• If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Years, Giving

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• The commonest and cheapest sounds, as the barking of a dog, produce the same effect on fresh and healthy ears that the rarest music does. It depends on your appetite for sound. Just as a crust is sweeter to a healthy appetite than confectionery to a pampered or diseased one.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dog, Healthy, Sound

  Henry David Thoreau, Wesley T. Mott, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (2005). “Bonds of Affection: Thoreau on Dogs and Cats”, p.32, Univ of Massachusetts Press

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• Our circumstances answer to our expectations and the demand of our natures.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Expectations, Answers, Demand

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.209, Xist Publishing

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• Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Lakes, Race

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• There is always some accident in the best things, whether thoughts or expressions or deeds. The memorable thought, the happy expression, the admirable deed are only partly ours.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Art, Philosophy, Memorable

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.207, Courier Corporation

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• I knew that the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money.... In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is true.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wall, Virginia, America

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Excursions and Poems : The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume V (of 20)”, p.73, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

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• We need the tonic of wildness.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Health, Environmental

  "Bonds of Affection: Thoreau on Dogs and Cats".

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• We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Character, Adequate, Language

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• I would remind my countrymen, that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour. No matter how valuable law may be to protect your property, even to keep soul and body together, if it do not keep you and humanity together.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Responsibility, Men, Soul And Body

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1151, Delphi Classics

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• What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority. The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately were not men of sense nor of principle; in a high moral sense they were not men at all.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Responsibility, Marine, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.129, David M Gross

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• Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum - many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Glasses, Sky

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.217, Courier Corporation

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• It is a thorough process, this war with the wilderness - breaking nature, taming the soil. feeding it on oats. The civilized man regards the pine tree as his enemy. He will fell it and let in the light, grub it up and raise wheat or rye there. It is no better than a fungus to him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Men, Light

  David R. Foster, Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Thoreau's Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape”, p.38, Harvard University Press

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• Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority, have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which the bear and panther, and some even of the hunter race, may still exist, and not be "civilized off the face of the earth," - our forests, not to hold the king's game merely, but to hold and preserve the king himself also, the lord of creation, - not for idle sport or food, but for inspiration and our own true re-creation?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sports, Kings, Inspiration

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “The Maine Woods - The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, p.102, Read Books Ltd

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• The very willow-rows lopped every three years for fuel or powder, - and every sizable pine and oak, or other forest tree, cut down within the memory of man! As if individual speculators were to be allowed to export the clouds out of the sky, or the stars out of the firmament, one by one. We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Stars, Memories, Cutting

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.158

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• It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment. If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Doors, Boulders, Would Be

  Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.226, Courier Corporation

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• We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters, and our schoolhouse is the universe. To attend chiefly to the desk or schoolhouse while we neglect the scenery in which it is placed is absurd. If we do not look out we shall find our find schoolhouse standing in a cow-yard at last.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Education, Yards, Looks

  Henry David Thoreau, Joseph O. Valentine, Thoreau Society (2001). “Thoreau on Land: Nature's Canvas”, p.88, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Who is old enough to have learned from experience?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Experience, Enough

  Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1906). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau ....”

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• The value of any experience is measured, of course, not by the amount of money, but the amount of development we get out of it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Experience, Development, Courses

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.243, David M Gross

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• What we want is not mainly to colonize Nebraska with free men, but to colonize Massachusetts with free men-to be free ourselves. As the enterprise of a few individuals, that is brave and practical; but as the enterprise of the State, it is cowardice and imbecility. What odds where we squat, or bow much ground we cover? It is not the soil that we would make free, but men.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Men, Odds

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.135, David M Gross

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