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d540791
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I am thinking by what long discipline and at what cost a man learns to speak simply at last.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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5e75214
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There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon"--said Damodara, when his herds required new and larger pastures."
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Henry David Thoreau |
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351ff9a
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They who suspect a Mephistophiles, or sneering, satirical devil, under all, have not learned the secret of true humor, which sympathizes with gods themselves, in view of their grotesque, half-finished creatures.
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inspiration
wisdom
satire
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Henry David Thoreau |
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265be15
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The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do...How vigilant we are! determined not live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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f5c3fe2
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America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral tyrant. Now that the republic -- the res-publica -- has been settled, it is time to look after the res-privata, -- the private state, -- to see, as the Roman sena..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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9683074
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Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may ..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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c4faef2
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Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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2925f06
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Die Einfachheit und Nacktheit des primitiven Menschen hatte wenigstens den Vorteil, dass er sich in der Natur als Gast fuhlte. War er durch Nahrung und Schlaf erquickt, dann dachte er wieder ans Weiterziehen. Er lebte in der Welt gleichsam wie in einem Zelt, durchstreifte die Taler, uberquerte die Ebenen oder kletterte auf Berge. Aber die Menschen haben sich zu Werkzeugen ihrer Werkzeuge gemacht! Der Mensch, der sich frei und unabhangig Bee..
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religion
mensch
natur
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Henry David Thoreau |
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290ef58
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We commonly do not remember that it is ... always the first person that is speaking.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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74a946f
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I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded and ready, speak of his 'furniture,' as whether it is insured or not. 'But what shall I do with my furniture?'...It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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1a35a4b
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Quanto ad adottare le soluzioni offerte dallo Stato per portare rimedio al male - io, quelle soluzioni, non le conosco: richiedono troppo tempo e un uomo morirebbe prima di riuscire a metterle in atto. Ho altre cose cui badare. Venni al mondo non principalmente per trasformarlo in un luogo buono dove vivere ma per vivervi, buono o cattivo che fosse. Un uomo non deve fare tutto, ma qualche cosa; e poiche tutto non lo puo fare, non e necessar..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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62392b4
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On Ponkawtasset, since, we took our way, Down this still stream we took our meadowy way, A poet wise has settled, whose fine ray Doth faintly shine on Concord's twilight day. Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high, Shining more brightly as the day goes by, Most travellers cannot at first descry, But eyes that wont to range the evening sky, And know celestial lights, do plainly see, And gladly hail them, numbering two or three; F..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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7751df1
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The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men ; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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4e9bc25
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A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit until we have so conducted that we feel like new men in the old.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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af31068
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Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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340a589
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My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it; that is a penalty which reformed tobacco chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed, which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does , for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoe-strings. Take your time, and se..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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881f84b
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For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak, But only thinks and does; Though surely out 'twill leak Without the help of Greek, Or any tongue.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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29ed3dc
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Alles, was unserer korperlichen Ernahrung und Pflege dient, lassen wir uns mehr kosten als unsere geistige Ernahrung.
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materialismus
psyche
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Henry David Thoreau |
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406f902
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I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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68c41f8
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Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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401bd1f
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There is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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12c6ac8
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When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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cefea42
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Now-a-days, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty cap.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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1d5c519
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Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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4945931
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If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.
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government
pessimism
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Henry David Thoreau |
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1c00bf9
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The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise!
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Henry David Thoreau |
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fe93ce2
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I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui. Follow your genius..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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973c280
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Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate the..
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Henry David Thoreau |
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8c0a3f4
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Friendship is first, Friendship last. But it is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins. I would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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0cae868
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Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies, -neighbors are kind enough for that, -but to do the like office to our spirits. For this few are rich enough, however well disposed they may be.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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0865fcb
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I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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00200e9
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If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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260b4d4
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Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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adbf710
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It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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4713cf8
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No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to.
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money
materialism
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Henry David Thoreau |
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165d126
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I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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af14f0e
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We should be men first, and subjects afterward.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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721e028
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It is not my business to be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This
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Henry David Thoreau |
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1df4dc7
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What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers?
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Henry David Thoreau |
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845aecc
|
I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians.
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politics
religion
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Henry David Thoreau |
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c7850eb
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But never mind; faint heart never won true Friend. O Friend, may it come to pass, once, that when you are my Friend I may be yours.
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Henry David Thoreau |
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cc97ca7
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The moose will perhaps one day become extinct; but how naturally then, when it exists only as a fossil relic, and unseen as that, may the poet or sculptor invent a fabulous animal with similar branching and leafy horns, -- a sort of fucus or lichen in bone, -- to be the inhabitant of such a forest as this!
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philosophy
wildlife
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Henry David Thoreau |
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671800d
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for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.
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delusion
government
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Henry David Thoreau |
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7818a19
|
I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepa..
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Henry David Thoreau |