Muskrats Quotes

• A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Games, Despair, Amusement

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.15

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• The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks where the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Years, Land

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden: An Annotated Edition”, p.323, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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'

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• I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice ... While I am looking at him, I am thinking what he is thinking of me. He is a different sort of man, that's all.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophical, Animal, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (1960). “H. D. Thoreau, a Writer's Journal”, p.24, Courier Corporation

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• It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Business

  'Walden' (1854) 'Economy'

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• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sad, Men, Despair

  Walden ch. 1 (1854)

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• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  Walden ch. 1 (1854)

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• It would seem that emotions are the curse, not death-emotions that appear to have developed upon a few freaks as a special curse from Malevolence. All right then. It is our emotions that are amiss. We are freaks, the world is fine, and let us all go have lobotomies to restore us to a natural state. We can leave the library then, go back to the creek lobotomized, and live on its banks as untroubled as any muskrat or reed. You first.

  Annie Dillard

  Special, Library, World

  Annie Dillard (1994). “The Annie Dillard reader”, Harpercollins

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• Courage~ What makes the flag on the mast to wave? What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot?~Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz

  L. Frank Baum

  Elephants, Dawn, Hot

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• As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle. In one direction from my house there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; under the grove of elms and buttonwoods in the other horizon was a village of busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prarie-dogs, each sitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a neighbor's to gossip. I went there frequently to observe their habits.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Dog, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “Walden: Life in the Woods”, p.105, Gibbs Smith

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• Is that a beard, or is Niedermayer eating a muskrat?

  Harry Neale

  Hockey, Nhl, Beard

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